I am still new at this whole protecting our bb houses, I have learned the hard way twice and now IM coming here for some great advice, which I am getting and you will also. I thought someone told me that if you clean the bb nest out after fledging to leave it open for awhile. Mama bb will be busy with her baby's. IM not really sure but I do think this was suggested to me? If not someone will set you straight soon. Congrats on the six fledglings, that is huge!! After watching video of wrens and sparrows raiding and killing bb's IM pissed and ready to rip their little heads off. (oh my) LOL good luck.

You removed a Chickadee nest?? Why on earth would you remove a Chickadee nest?? They are very low on the totem pole as far as successful nestings since they cannot fight off larger cavity nesters, plus they usually only have one brood per season so they need all the help they can get. I LOVE Dees! I have had them nesting here for the last three years and I would never never remove one of their nests!! I protect them as much as I could and if a Blue pair wanted the box that a Dee already had then I would put a hole reducer on the box so the Blues couldn't have it! I have tons of TRES that take all the boxes around here but I haven't removed any of their nests either, just keep hoping the Blues find an empty box and nest. The Blues around here are always the last to start nesting so they get what is left pretty much of the nestboxes. I have one pair of Blues, one pair of Dees and six pairs of TRES all nesting right now. Blues love mealworms but as far as getting them to stay in your yard and nest, there is no guarantee. The male finds the nesting sites but the female needs to approve of it. She makes the final pic. If she likes the nestbox she will stay...if they found something better elsewhere they will go there. Alot depends on the availability of nestboxes around your area. If they have lots to choose from they could go anywhere but if there aren't alot of spots for them to choose from then maybe they will choose your yard. However if you aren't prepared to let other native cavity nesters use the nestboxes you put up then you shouldn't be offering nestboxes. Oh and hopefully all your nestboxes are mounted on slick metal poles (conduit works best) with predator baffles and at least 15 feet away from trees or fences. Donna

Hi Pam and anyone else interested, After my last posting, we had a very high wind come up for about an hour. It blew some branches and clumps of leaves down all around our area, but no rain. It also blew down a large piece of wood that may have frightened the baby, but for whatever reason, the little bird went back under the fence to outside of our yard, and the parents seemed to keep him there this time. In fact, he quite moved on from being squenched up next to the fence, and I could not see him any more with a quick check, but I did hear him answering his mother, and the parents kept coming back and were in different trees to watch after him. They were actually in the trees they perched in to watch their original bluebird home, about 10 feet closer to the front of the house than they had been through this ordeal in our fenced back yard. This morning when I got up, the bluebird parents were not there nor was he. The parents did come back a couple of times when I was outside and did not seem distressed. They did not seem to be calling to him at all. I didn't hear them sing or call any at all. The trees they were sitting in as I mentioned before were closer to the front of my yard and I cannot see the birds from my back deck with binoculars like I could when they were looking after him in the shed. I didn't want to stay too close to see and frighten him into running again, so I missed seeing if they were going down and feeding him, if they had encouraged him to fly and if he did, or anything at all. All I know is that by about 10:00 a.m. when I went around to sit on my little concrete bench which is about 15 feet from the bluebird house, the mom and dad sat in the tree there where they always looked after their home like they were communing with me. Lol. I did hear what I know was some kind of baby bird high in the trees in my neighbor's yard right next to this area. Since I have not heard a baby bird calling from that area throughout this weekend, I'm just going to believe that it was him and that he was able to fly and get up there with his parents calling him at some time that I didn't see. He could almost fly the day before, so I'm hoping that they get him moved down the block to the little field where they moved and where his siblings are. I hope they bring all their babies back to see me some day the way another bluebird family did a couple of years ago. I'll try to let you know if I see all 5 of the babies some time, but there are lots of bluebirds around here, so it may be hard to tell. Last week, there was a whole family of about 7 bluebirds on my roof for about 30 minutes. Karen

2 of the babies from our last clutch are still hanging around. They will beg, but I haven't observed the parents feeding them anymore. Interesting thing happened yesterday. There are 4 new eggs which the female is incubating. I observed one of the fledglings enter the box, and he/she never came out! It was late afternoon...quite warm...Was he snuggling with the female? couldnt guess. I will add that during a very cold spell in the winter, every evening 5 bluebirds would arrive and crowd into the house. In the morning, they would fly out, one by one, wake up a little, then fly off. But every evening, they would arrive, one by one, and go back into their "bedroom " together!