congrats on your dee babies. Your so lucky. In case you aren't aware dees aren't as tolerant as blues in monitoring. I have heard that too many human disturbances may cause them to abandon the nest.

Renee

Congrats!!! I'm very jealous. Renee is correct, Not to much monitoring with the Dees. They will tolerate guards but not spookers.
Good Luck
Cathy

Congrats...I have dees feeding babies too! It's true that dees are not as tolerant regarding monitoring as the blues, but I don't think they will abandon their babies, but if I were you, I wouldn't open the nestbox again..just let Mom and Dad do their job. Sometimes it's tough for us to leave things alone as our excitement and curiosity gets the best of us! You'll enjoy the sweet sounds when the babies have fledged!

Donna

I am soooooooo jealous of u guys with chickadees. I want them to nest with me so bad!! Congratulations to u.

Cathy...thanks for the info on chickadees and spookers. I did not know that. If I ever get lucky enough to have chickadees, no spookers.

Karen

Mama dees would scold me when I monitored (2 boxes) but she always returned to the nest. Dees do get used to their humans and I've read that they can even be trained to hand feed.

Don't the babies look like tiny shrimp?

Congratulations!!!! I know this is a bluebird forum but I'll have to admit that I love hosting dees every bit as much as bluebirds. They are just too cute!

As far as monitoring, in MY case the dees are just as tolerant as the bluebirds. I've hosted them for 6 straight years (5 eggs in the box right now) and have always monitored them. Not daily but I don't monitor the blues daily either. I try to monitor just to be sure everything is going well inside the nest box. As long as the adults are going about their daily routine in a normal way to my eye, I don't bother them but if something looks odd to me or if the adults aren't displaying typical behavior I always take a look. Once to find a carpenter bee in the box and another time to find a lovely nest infested with ants (before eggs were laid, thank heavens). Because I spend so much time in the yard, filling feeders, gardening, etc., I think my dees know me and aren't bothered by me checking their nest box.

Mulchmamma, I've been scolded a time or two myself! LOL! They give me a good DEEDEEDEE what for!

Janie May, I dee dee them right back! Actually, I talk to them and I believe they are getting used to me. They even hang around the feeders while I fill them. Would love for them to eat out of my hand-think as long as I don't move, it might work.

Linda

I have 6 maybe 7 dees hatched and now nest is infested with ants that may well cause the death of the brood. This is cedar box, 1 year old, first nesting ever in this box. No noticeable ant nest or trail from ground, box is pole mounted with cone baffle under the box and no tree branches close enough to bring in ants. I will continue to seek out the source of ants, but feel I need to resort to changing out the nesting material. I will seek help from the web first. Meanwhile, I have 4 blues hatched in another box and 5 tufted titmice soon to hatch. 3 of my 5 boxes are occupied. I hope to keep all inhabitants alive!

emmyemmy,

Could you try painting some Tanglefoot around the pole under the baffle so the birds can't accidentally land on it? You could even sprinkle a small amount of sugar on the Tanglefoot to see if that would attract the ants down.

First - congratulations on your chickadee babies. I have a lot of them around here but have never seen a nest.

Second - the ant problem. That's what scares me the most around here. Looks like we're going to have another big year with fire ants.

tara

Is the top of the pole plugged? If not the ants could use the inside as a sort of ant highway to get directly to the box.

Smear axle grease on the pole. Can you lift the nest with a pancake "flipper" and clear out the ants? I don't have an ant problem but if I did, would consider placing the pole in the middle of a tube cake pan, silicone any opening around the pole and fill the pan with water to create sort of a moat.

Linda

The ants must go, and must be prevented! If they are fire ants, it is probably already too late.
Please refer to Bet's website and save it as a Favorite. Here is the page that refers to ants, the causes, problems and solutions: http://www.sialis.org/predatorid.htm
If you build a moat, be sure to keep it filled with water and no leaves or grass fall in to make a bridge for ants.
Bluebars

OMG, this sounds so familiar! I had the most beautiful, 100% complete, dee nest and opened the box to find it FULL of ants! Not fire ants, just common sweet ants. They were not there before the heavy rains came but were all over the inside of the box after two days of rain. My pole is greased (I use axle grease) and the only way ants got into that box was that they were carried in by the dees in the moss. They continued to build during the rain. I sprayed the inside of the box, nest and all, with something called Camicide. I have lovebirds and it is a 100% bird safe product that I've used in my bird room many times so I knew it wouldn't harm the adults. The camicide killed 80 to 90% of the ants but some remained in the nest so I did what I thought had to be done and pulled the nest. I cleaned the box thoroughly, spraying again with Camicide and washing it and they were busy building again the next day. This current nest with the 6 eggs is much smaller than the first but they were in a hurry to lay and couldn't spend more time building.

If you can find Camicide, it is safe and does work. In Atlanta you can find it in PET BIRD specialty stores. I buy it at bird fairs. You can also order it on line. BTW, on the bottle it does not mention "ants" as one of the things the spray will kill but I was told on my "lovebird" forum to buy it and it really works very well. I've sprayed it in my lovebirds cages with them inside the cages at the time. There are two types of Camicide spray, one is used inside or out and is SAFE for birds. The others is for outside use only and isn't safe for birds.

OMG, this sounds so familiar! I had the most beautiful, 100% complete, dee nest and opened the box to find it FULL of ants! Not fire ants, just common sweet ants. They were not there before the heavy rains came but were all over the inside of the box after two days of rain. My pole is greased (I use axle grease) and the only way ants got into that box was that they were carried in by the dees in the moss. They continued to build during the rain. I sprayed the inside of the box, nest and all, with something called Camicide. I have lovebirds and it is a 100% bird safe product that I've used in my bird room many times so I knew it wouldn't harm the adults. The camicide killed 80 to 90% of the ants but some remained in the nest so I did what I thought had to be done and pulled the nest. I cleaned the box thoroughly, spraying again with Camicide and washing it and they were busy building again the next day. This current nest with the 6 eggs is much smaller than the first but they were in a hurry to lay and couldn't spend more time building.

If you can find Camicide, it is safe and does work. In Atlanta you can find it in PET BIRD specialty stores. I buy it at bird fairs. You can also order it on line. BTW, on the bottle it does not mention "ants" as one of the things the spray will kill but I was told on my "lovebird" forum to buy it and it really works very well. I've sprayed it in my lovebirds cages with them inside the cages at the time. There are two types of Camicide spray, one is used inside or out and is SAFE for birds. The others is for outside use only and isn't safe for birds.