Dee, DH said your box arrived, He opened it for me, and my goodness woman, you went way over and beyond. I wrote down all the contents as he was telling me so here goes A Homemade/handpainted bird house!I can't wait to see it, I'm so excited, and DH stated in your card that your DH made it and Missy painted it. Please, Please thank them for me. 2 Suet cakes for my goldfinches :O) :O) Green tea and cucumber Fragrant Sashet Osmocote pot shots/plant food nuggets. Oriental lily Mona Lisa; I'm thrilled. 2 Asiatic liliums liberation, just beautiful T-Label garden markers Note cards sticky notes garden gloves 8 piece set of kitchen towels, potholders and dishcloth If that wasn't enough, you sent the following seeds. I love sunflowers, and feed the birds, so all of these will be put to good use. Velvet Queen Peach Passion Autumn Beauty Moonshine Mammoth Iris Eyes. Dee, again, you went above and beyond, and I thank you! Oh yes, here are the confirmation numbers for your other package, and little something for Missy. I don't know what number goes with which one, but here they are, and I'm sorry for the lateness. 0308 3390 0000 5642 0401 0308 3390 0000 5642 0425 If I have missed something please let me know! Time for Bed, LIFE IS GOOD, Annie

Yes, I get mobs of TRES and I worry each time they will ovewehlm the other birds but they don't. In my yard I have two boxes paired (about 30 feet apart) on the east side of the house, then in the back yard I have two boxes paired on the west side of the house and in the front yard I have two boxes paired on the west side. The boxes on the east are sortof in sight of the boxes in the back west side (a big tree is inbetween) and are about 68 yards from them. The pairs of boxes in the front west are in sight of the boxes in the back west and are about 64 yards apart. I normally have three or four pairs of TRES nesting and a pair of Blues and sometimes a pair of Dees too in our yard. Then I have three boxes at the back of our lot, not in sight of any of the yard boxes and are over 100 yard away from the yard boxes, these normally have two pairs of TRES and one pair of Blues. Then about a half mile away is a park where I had five (now seven) nestboxes. I normally have two or three pairs of TRES and a pair of Blues, may be different this year with the extra two boxes. So as you can see we have lots and lots of TRES in the area. They were mobbing the Blues yesterday but mom is incubating what I think are five eggs so I am not too worried about the TRES this year since the Blues are so far ahead. Weather has been pretty cool here lately so the TRES aren't real serious yet. Last year the TRES kept chasing away the Dees from the paired box (TRES wanted one and the Dees had started a nest in the other). I added a sparrow spooker and the TRES just used it as a perch. The TRES didn't deter the Dees at all though and once the Dees laid their first egg, I added a wren guard. By this time the TRES were nestbuilding so they weren't worried about the paired box anymore. Good luck, hope yours Blues renest! Donna

After watch a female bluebird sitting for 23 days of incubating 5 eggs (have a nest cam, too), a house wren pecked 2 of the eggs and threw them out of the box. I found one at the base of the box and it had a dead embryo in it. It had all its 'bird parts' but would not have hatched after all that time. I didn't find the 2nd one thrown out but I did take out the remaining 3. The dead embryo and the 3 eggs I took into the house stunk like dead fish! That's after I opened them, I don't know if you could smell that though the shells or not. The other 3 eggs were not developed past maybe 24-48 hours. I have no explanation as to why these eggs did not develop. If the parents don't mind, you could take the eggs out and smell them to see if they smell rotten. If they do, I'd take them out of there. The parents may be confused at first but it might be better to help them move on to the next brood. I left the nest in the box hoping that Mama Blue will be stimulated to try again. I'd leave the nest there if I were you. Good luck, I know your pain. Linda...

So sorry to hear about your Blues, Nina. How very sad. Like Bluebars said, you will probably never know what happened which is too bad. Sparrow spookers are a great invention. I have to tell you a story about one this year. I had it on a house that the Blues started laying eggs in. After the 4th egg was laid Daddy Blue disappeared. Momma during this time was so very skittish. One day was a pretty windy day and you could see she didn't like the noise the spooker was making when the mylar strips would hit each other. She kept going into the box but then right back out several times. I decided to see what she would do if I took the spooker off so I went down and took it off. Got back to the house and looked at the nestbox and there was a TRES looking in the box. That fast there was another bird at that nestbox, nothing ever bothered it once the spooker was on it but as soon as it was down, bam something was checking it out. Needless to say it went back up immediately. I didn't intend on leaving it down, just wanted to see if that was what was bothering momma so much. Thankfully on day 5 of Daddy's disappearance he returned and momma settled down. Take Care Donna