Here is my story so far. I leave on a 5 acre mini farm, surrounded by other 5 -20 acre mini farms. I never had blue birds in town, so I really didn�t start thinking about them until a couple seasons ago. So a year and � ago I put up 2 next boxes, following some suggestions I found online, but now know I was way off it seems. I put the 2 boxes on the vinyl horse fence on the top rail, about 300 feet apart I would guess. Last spring I think I found some nesting materials in the boxes, but didn�t see any eggs or babies.

This year started out great, what I think are TRES are in the back box, and a Blue family set up in the closer box. Well the first set of 5 eggs in the blue box disappeared one night and I suspect a raccoon ate them, so we caught and moved the raccoon far away. I read to pull out the old nest, so I did and within a day or so she started the new nest. Soon there were 5 eggs again and I was so excited. I got some meal worms, but was unable to get them to notice and eat them, I also blew some cash on that bird cam so I could watch them. So far all seems pretty good with the Blues, I wasn�t really sure how invasive I could be with nest, so I have peaked in so far and have seen 2 babies with mouths open and one that I am not sure if it is alive or sleeping. They hatched the 5th. Since I have the camera I was able to see some of the activity going on and finally just 2 days ago got them to find the mealworms and eat them, so I am giving some meal worms and small strawberries morning and evening. It�s fun to see them dive for insects though also and then feed the babies.

I didn�t read about sparrow spookers until the eggs had been there a week or so, so I have been afraid to put one up. But last night I saw some possibly odd activity and after reading this forum (it�s kind of depressing) I hope I don�t get home tonight to find a disaster. Some birds that I think might be wrens or sparrows were hanging with my Blue couple on the fence. There weren�t fights, but it was just odd how they were hanging around. I have seen a blue jay hang around sometimes, but the male chases him off and he doesn�t really seem too interested in the nest box anyway. So I�m worried the sparrows or wrens have now noticed what�s going on and might be planning an attack. I was hoping since it�s pretty late in the season, those other birds might be past their nesting season and not really interested, but from the threads here it doesn�t sound like that�s true.

Questions� if everything is still fine this evening, should I put up a sparrow spooker or would that risk the parents leaving also? Should I get in the nest box and look under the nest, etc for ants?

On the TRES nest I have not looked in there much because I was afraid I might scare them off. ...