Many of the birds you mention aren't cavity nesters, so a nest box wouldn't matter. Probably chickadees are the most likely. If you put up a box for chickadees, of course make sure it's protected from predators with a baffle on the post or pole, especially since you mention cats and racoons. The hole size is 1 1/8", small enough that house sparrows and starlings won't be able to enter. One thing I read is that chickadees might prefer a larger hole to start with, like 1 1/4", and then once they have established use of the box, you can put a 1 1/8" hole reducer on. Much depends on the habitat in your yard and in the surrounding area. Chickadees seem to like the nest box to be on the edge of a woody or shrubby area. A chickadee box might also attract house wrens, so I guess it depends on whether you want to potentially host them or not. You don't mention what state you live in, so I don't know if you have house wrens. Other suggestions for nest boxes could be wood ducks (since you live near water), or even screech owls, which could use the same box as wood ducks. Or, you could try putting up an Owl Shack in the fall. I've got two up, no luck so far with screech owls, but the woodpeckers sure like to drum on that nice resonant box! If you have many dogs and cats running around your neighborhood, then you might not get anything at all. If that is the case, then you might not want to try and attract wood ducks, because they have to jump out of the box to make their way to the water, and would be easy targets for cats.

My best advise is to take a yard stick and cut kerfs in it. See www.sialis.org for Kerf instructions. It's jus a series of rough cuts they can climb like a ladder. God Luck!

We checked the box and the nest was flattened completely. We had gone out to purchase and prepare a new bluebird box and a new post as the old one was warping. We removed the old nest and took out the pool and house to dig a deeper hole for the new house. The parent stood by the entire time we did this. There were no babies left in the box, however, at the very bottom of the nest we did find one egg that did not hatch. We don't think this is why the parents kept coming back. We do think they just wanted to keep a claim on the box. Well, within two minutes (before we even got back to our house) the male flew back to the new house and both parents have been flying back and forth for the last four days. The male keeps looking inside the box and if any other bird attempts to come near, they are quickly chased away by the male. We are anxiously awaiting for them to start building their new nest. They may be still feeding their babies who should be pretty well on their own by now. It was interesting how they watched us as we installed their "new house" and immediately returned to it. I'll keep you posted and hopefully building will begin soon. We saw them do this before they built their last nest. It took days for them to actually start building. We checked and checked and finally started to see the female bringing in nesting material. Hope it happens soon. It has been very hot here - temperatures around 90 and above. Lots of baby cardinals, bluejayss, etc. coming around our feeders near our house. Everyone is quite busy! And the babies are quite insistent on being fed even though some are a large as their parents.

Often during nestchecks, momma dee will be on the eggs/hatchlings. When ours hatched I could see them under the momma but every time I checked to see if all hatched she would be in there. That is very common for Dees to stay on the nest during nestchecks. You wouln't have done any harm. Incubation is typically about 12-13 days for Dees and fledging about 16+ days after that. If you know when they hatch then you know when you can expect fledging. You don't want to check the box after day 10/11 from hatching to prevent premature fledging. Donna