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wren eggs in box without nest

17 years ago

I haven't posted here in a long time, mainly because we were without bluebirds for the last three years. However, they returned this spring and their first five eggs were destroyed by the wrens. We removed the nest, the wrens relocated themselves and the blues built a second nest that fledged four babies. The blues had a third nest built and the wrens started putting twigs on top of it again. We have been in a constant battle with the wrens for the last week. They made such a mess of the bluebird nest that we had to remove that also (I do not believe that the blues would have returned to it anyway). We do not have a wren guard.

The situation is this now - there are a few twigs in the box and the wren has laid her egg on the bare bottom of the box. We do not want the wrens to be there, but can we remove the egg even though there is no real nest in there?

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Comments (4)

lisa11310
17 years ago
Why don't you have a Wren guard? They are very easy to make.
House Wrens are a protected bird. I would not want them either!
bigmatt
17 years ago
The Wren was ready to lay,you removed the nest,So she laid without a nest.They will most likely build a new nest on top of the eggs and lay a new clutch.

matt
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bluebars
17 years ago
Oh my, what a quandary!
Our bluebirds have been battling HOWR too. But they have defended their territory and protected their 4 eggs. So far so good. The wren was removing nest material before the bluebird eggs were laid, so there was only a minimal amount of pine needles left in there. All the soft grasses had been removed by the #$@% wren. So the bluebird eggs are being incubated, but are nearly touching the wood floor. I've wondered if I should add some soft grasses, but then, I think, Mama knows best. Sometimes it is difficult to know what to do.
Surely a wren guard would not help you at this point. Sorry, I'm no help at all.
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chickadeedeedee
17 years ago
The wren eggs are just as protected as are the birds themselves. There's a discussion about the protection of birds and YouTube in the Birdwatching forum.

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