A baby bird,looks like it might be a woodpecker. It has some sort of stripes and a long beak.Just a few minutes ago,crash into our sliding glass door by the back porch. He knock himself out.I ran and he looked dead. I started to pick him up and he came out of his stupor. Straighten himself up and just stood there. I left him alone and will check him out later. Poor little feller. Felix

Welcome! First, nestboxes should never be mounted on fences, wooden posts, trees or anything else a predator can easily climb up. They should be mounted on slick metal poles (conduit) with predator baffles (wobbling stovepipe) and put up at least 15 feet away from any fence/tree or anything a predator can jump from. Your raccoon you relocated could be back anytime and or another raccoon could come by and see its happy meal sitting waiting on the fence for it. Please visit sialis.org for helpful information on properly mounting nestboxes and info on sparrow spookers/wren guards etc. If you see birds sitting with the Blues and not being chased away they are not wrens or HOSP. They are most likey House Finches which like to hang with Blues for some reason. However being you are on a farm with other farms around you probably most likely have HOSP around. A sparrow spooker will not scare the Blues away from their nesting and I would put one up asap, right after you move that box off that fence and to a safer spot about 15 feet away from the fence. Yes you can move an active nesting like this, the Blues won't abandon it because of moving it. As far as the TRES you can do the same with that box but you will need to be much more careful if there are eggs. It is really hard to see in their nests because of all the feathers but usually when it is loaded with feathers that means there are eggs in there. I just did a nestbox switch on an active Blues nesting because the momma blue laid seven eggs (which all hatched)in a smaller Gilwood style box, it has a 3 1/2" x 4 1/4" floor. I switched the nest to a larger box mounted on the same pole and had no problems with the adults accepting it. The nestlings were five days old. Good luck! Donna

They certainly do-the gaping mouths draw them! There's even that famous National Geographic "Song and Garden Birds of North America" photo of a male Cardinal stuffing insects into the mouths of huge goldfish in a N. Carolina backyard pool that gathered to be fed whenever he chirped to them

I have had blue birds' nest in my 2 houses for many years and never had a problem other than one time a snake or something got them. I fixed that problem. However, this year our first brood of 5 were within days of fledging and they all died. The only thing different this year is when they were feeding, I had my house washed and the guy used a fairly strong clorox based cleaner unlike my previous hose washer who used a enviro-friendly house wash. The blue birds and other birds were grabbing up the worms being flushed up from all the water and feeding the babies in a frenzy. I only let this guy wash my house because he was a neighbors nephew or some other kin. I didn't know he used a Clorox based cleaner or I would have not let him do it, I would have gotten my usual guy to do it. Clorox isn't good for vinyl siding nor the environment, but not sure about blaming the Clorox for the kill.