Well I live in Central WI and I saw a bluebird pair on March 19th, then all the horrible weather moved in and they disappeared. I haven't seen any Bluebirds since. My mom lives about an hour north and she had a male around for a bit recently but don't think there was a female. My sister who lives northeast of me about an hour and a half had a pair at her house last week but they left. I have no clue what is up this year. I have nestboxes on our property and at a park near our house. We have had bluebirds for the last five years in our yard and the last four at the park. At the park is always where I have the first Blues and they have always had a nest already in April, not this year...no sign of them. Now last year my nesting pair first got here on May 14th and the year before on May 24th so there still is time but I have no clue why I haven't seen hardly any this year. Strange!

Donna

I FINALLY have blues! YAY! Yesterday was the 1st time I saw them, and they spent the entire day going in and out of my BB house nest building. They seem to be continuing with the nest building today. I am sooooooooo happy!

Congrats, hopefully some are still heading north! Oh and you mentioned having your nestbox raided last year possibly by a raccoon. Is your nestbox mounted on a slick metal pole with a baffle? If you want to prevent the same thing happening again this year I sure hope you have it mounted properly! It should not be on a fence/tree or wooden post, that makes it very easy for a raccoon to climb up and get to the nest.

Donna

Yes. We have taken good precautions against predators. The wooden post the nesting box is attached to is cemented into the ground ... so we have installed a stovepipe baffle on the post and it wobbles. We also made a sparrow spooker and are ready once the 1st egg is laid. The blues are still going in and out, nest building I presume, and I will check on their progress tonight. Any other suggestions for me? Thanks.

That is so exciting. Sounds like you're doing everything right to keep them safe. My only other suggestion would be to put out some sterilized, crushed egg shells. Birds will eat these for the calcium once they start laying eggs. And if you can, put out some mealworms too. That should keep them happy.

Glad you have it baffled and are ready with the spooker. Hope you don't have wrens around, they are nasty!! Already lost a Dee egg/nesting to them as I didn't get the wren guard up quickly enough! My other pair of Dees are incubating 6 eggs. Have tons of TRES nesting and today.....I saw a female Bluebird! She has hung around the yard the entire day however I haven't seen a male yet!

Donna

Yes,there are wrens around the neighborhood. I keep removing their stick nest (daily) from a new nesting box I bought to hopefully attract chickadees. My backyard neighbor has wrens in a bluebird nesting box close to my property. What are your suggestions? Should I ask him to remove the wrens?

I am wondering, Donna, if my neighbor evicts the wrens, will they be more likely to come after my bluebirds? If he leaves them be, will they possibly leave my blues alone? Cannot wait to get home from work tonight to check for the 1st egg!

If I were you once your female starts laying eggs, add a wren guard to the box just to be on the safe side. A wren will go into any nestbox that they see a hole in, not to nest but to evict anything that is in there. A wren will peck the eggs and throw them or baby birds from nestboxes. I have attached a link (below) for helpful info on wrens and wren guards. Look at the guard about 2/3 of the way down the page where it says Drawing of Wren Guard. I believe it shows it made out of wood but you can easily make it out of cardboard and just duct tape it to the box. That is what I do, lots of people use cheezit boxes. You definately want to do this after you see the first egg and not before or they may abandon the nest. Start out simple with like the picture shows but once you know they have accepted it you can add sides to prevent a wren from looking over the side of the box from the top and seeing the hole. I have had Blues accept a wren guard but one year I had a pair that wouldn't and we had to go without. Good luck!

Oh and I have a female Blue hanging around now and as it turns out it must be one from either last year or a different year cause when I put the mealworm feeder out it came right to it. I have never had that happed before, I have always had to train them once they started nesting. Sure hope a male turns up soon!

Donna

Here is a link that might be useful: wren guard

I am home from work now, and there aren't any eggs in the nest. Is this normal? How many days before I should wonder why there aren't eggs?