Tim, sounds like my house. I have 3 boxes. I put fishing line on a box that some HOSP had started building a nest in. I took the nesting material out and opened the box for awhile. This happened about a month ago. I closed the box and put fishing wire near the entrance hole. HOSP didn't like that and they seemed to have gone away. Today they are back building a nest, fishing wire and all. I opened the box, took out the nesting material to deter them. My blues have already started laying eggs in another box. There are 3 eggs now. . One HOSP landed on that box. The blues chased them away. Then One HOSP landed on the other box (empty box) blues chased them away from that box. I will have to keep an eye on everything. I live on a golf course. My yard is fairly large, but not too large that I can't see comings and goings. I don't have fish wire on the other two boxes. May have to put some on the box the eggs are in and see if that will work. Hope it won't disturb the blues too much.

Clipclop your in my thoughts and prayers !! Here is who I am waiting to hear from .... audrey brandyyoho gmom2-6boys grdngramma ishareflowers leann2800 micyrey msirie pinkiris sinbadsmom smitties stefaniechamo susieQsie If you sent to me, and I mistakenly put you on the list, please just send me an email. Also if your a newbie with NO seeds, just let me know that also...otherwise PLEASE send me a list of screen names that your mailing to...ASAP !! I will begin passing around the Elf list tonight, it does take time, and I will update here :) Thanks SOOO much for ALL of you being SOO generous !!!

So sorry this has happened to you after good luck for so long. My first thought is House Wrens, they can and will pierce eggs and throw eggs and or young nestlings from the nestbox. Normally once the nestlings are 7+ days old they are too big for the wren to throw out though. How old were the baby blues? sialis.org has info on house wrens and lots of other great info on hosting bluebirds and other cavity nesting birds. Glad to hear you have a spooker up if you have HOSP in the area...they aren't nesting in another box in your yard are they? If you have HOSP in the area, house sparrow management is a must. Also just to make sure, is your box mounted on a slick metal pole with a predator baffle and at least 15 feet away from any fence/tree or anything a predator could jump from? What you need to do right now to get the Blues to renest is to clean out the nest and either move the box a bit away from where it was (unless you have another empty box near there) or move the direction of the box..if it was facing east, maybe turn it north. Normally Blues will not renest in a box that they had a failed nesting in but by moving or turning it, they might renest. However if this was a house wren you may end up with the same problem. Wren guards work (sialis has this info too) but normally if the wren knows the box is there, they would still find the hole with the wren guard on. So first you need to find out if indeed it was a wren or something else if the box isn't baffled, however most predators would eat the nestlings not throw them out like a wren does. Good luck! Donna

Tim, I was a little confused too on your paired boxes. I gather at one site of the two boxes you have a pair of blues that wouldnt let TRES nest that close. What about the other two paired boxes, what is in them? At a park near our home where I have nestboxes I had two sets of paired boxes at 15 feet apart. So I had two boxes 15 feet apart then over 300 feet and not within site another pair of boxes 15 feet apart. I've only had one box ever used as nothing would let another bird nest even that close. Here at my house I have paired boxes 25 feet apart and get Blues and TRES nesting fine with that distance in between them. So around here you need at least 25 feet to get both Blues and TRES, I do know other places have different results though. Late this Spring I moved my park boxes approx 40 feet apart as I am fine if we get two pairs of TRES in each set of boxes. Will see what happens next Spring with them. I too have a TRES box with 7 in it, however the all hatched the other day! Here is a pic from Sat.... If all my TRES hatch we will have 54 hatchlings out of 9 boxes!