We have spent most of the rainy weekend watching and photographing the birds on the Jelly Porch. I counted the pair of House Wrens, 5 different Baltimore Orioles, a pair of Cardinals and of course the many hummingbirds at their feeder. I almost forgot the pair of House Finches who have joined the group that likes grape jelly. It is fun to watch how each behaves. I don't know if the wrens are choosing this nest(I placed a gourd house up high in the corner) or another somewhere else. They aren't here daily, but always return. They are very mean to the other birds. The male orioles are mean to the juvenile males. The female redbird is more adventurous than the timid male and comes directly to the jelly; he hesitates a few times before flying down. The bluebirds have nested in the martin house; no martins this year; also in another blue bird house. A pair of Brown Thrashers have returned for several years to the east side yard and I am sure nest there someplace. I have begun seeing the gorgeous Blue Buntings this week both at the seed feeder and ground feeding. Lots to watch.

I live in a suburban type neighborhood but with houses on only one side of the street. Accross the street from me is a big (16 acre) open park and directly next to the park is another heavily wooded area which is a county nature preserve. My neighbors have the typical no garden landscape but here I have planted heavily in fruiting shrubs like viburnum, serviceberry, shrub dogwoods, Winterberry, blueberries, and many others that attract backyard songbirds. I have no bluebirds and no tree sparrows have ever come to my nestboxes although I do see them flying overhead. Although I have had the male wren building fake nests for 4 years, last year was the first year he found a mate and they fledged two broods. That year the chicadees were nesting less than 20 feet away from the wrens. They never bothered each other. This year the wren is nesting in the front yard in a slotbox house that is very near my blackberries. The chicadees are in the backyard in a box very near my old cherry tree. The nestboxes are not in sight of each other but really they are not that far from each other either as I do not have a huge yard. House wrens apprear to be rare here. It was years of me planting shrubs to make the yard more attractive to sonbirds before I ever saw a wren here. I know that this is not a polular opinion here on the bluebird forum but I really like the house wrens.

Hi! A couple weeks ago we noticed 2 Carolina wrens building their nest in our fern right outside of our kitchen window. We were so excited! Then a few days ago we no longer saw them around and sadly thought that they had abandoned their nest. This morning we were talking about removing the nest from the fern and when I peeked, I saw 5 eggs! Now we are concerned if they have abandoned their eggs :( Is this possible? We haven't seen them around at all. What time of the day do they incubate? Would it be possible that we are missing their timing? We are not morning risers. Agh! I'd be so sad if by any chance we scared them away :( We have been very respectful, however sometimes we would open the window. I do not know how long the eggs have been there. I thought that as soon as they were close to being done building their nest, they had left. Do they first build and then lay their eggs? Thank you so much!

We discovered a lovely robin's nest--active--in our front yard in our weeping cherry tree. Four beautiful eggs and the mom & dad active. Those eggs, unfortunately, disappeared, and my children and I are heartbroken. We want to encourage more robins, but our location isn't perfect (suburban CT), small yards, etc. But if the robins came once . . . we can't help but think they might nest again. One side of our house is quieter, we have vinyl siding, and there's some eave over there that could provide a bit of shelter. What is the best way to hang a nest shelf on vinyl siding without puncturing the siding? Is it even possible?