Glad you like it - I started on that site watching the barn owls (molly & magee) someone mentioned the Ga. bluebirds and I *immediately* went to check it out. They have been so funny this afternoon - each time the wind rocks the box - every little mouth opens wide expectantly!!

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.

It's almost surreal that those little things are birds, much less chickadees. They started gaping very quickly and seem to be able to process the food the parent is shoving in the mouth. Is the mother still rotating the four remaining eggs? And do you think they'll hatch? Claire

Those babies hatched Sunday. It is hot here - sometimes they laying with opened mouth because it is hot here. I hope they are OK. Here is a link that might be useful: link to webcam