Lisa and Cathy, Thanks for your encouragement. This year, the nest box is where I don't have but a few steps to run down should I have to :) Plus, I've had my knee replaced since last summer so I'm doing steps MUCH better. But the bottom line is THERE WILL BE NO HOUSE WRENS! I put a sign up where they can see it so I expect it'll work...I WISH! So far so good. I have two babies who are growing fast. And they are tough kids so there's nothing could stop them!! Bluebird blessings, Linda...

The boxes were paired about 10 feet apart,they each began building nest and the both began laying eggs ,Then All of the sudden,The TRES decided they wanted the other box.They moved in and began laying more eggs with the Wren eggs,even carefully adding nesting material under the the Wren eggs.I noticed the Wren was going in the other box where the TRES used to be.I thought for sure they would throw out the TRES eggs and rebuild another nest,But they didn't,she began incubating the TRES eggs.The start of incubation was a week apart,so I couldn't just switch everything.I was surprised some of the eggs hatched.I did contact a rehaber as soon as I noticed what was going on.Since TRES feed in the air,there was no way each Species would have survived once fledging.Here is the surviving TRES from the video,He/She was pulled from the nest just before it was due to fledge.It was released a few weeks later by the rehaber.

If you're seeing an unhatched egg five days after the others have hatched, it's probably a good idea to remove it. I've never had problems monitoring a chickadee nest. Sometimes the parent birds sit in a nearby tree and scold me, but that's about it. I would worry that as the babies move around more, the egg would break and foul the nest. I would wait for the female to leave the nest and carefully remove the unhatched egg.

Welcome to the world, little birds! And it's time to start feeding them, parents (easy for me to give orders while looking at a computer screen). Thanks for the update! Claire