Hi Dana. Bless your heart. Thank you so much for wanting to help the Bluebirds by buying a house for them. :o) Unfortunately, successfully hosting Bluebirds usually involves more than just erecting a house. I think that dzyg is trying to say that it would be best for the Bluebirds if everyone who erected a Bluebird house would take a little time to research them and their nesting preferences and to learn about how to offer the safest place that can be offered to them. The sialis website offers so much valuable information. It's a wonderful place to learn all about what you will absolutely need to know. The first thing you want to do is to learn about nest box placement to be sure that yours is properly placed and also has appropriate guards in place. Once you have accomplished that, you need to know about what can go wrong and what to do about it. House Sparrows (HOSP) are not native to this country and are not protected by federal laws. Thus, it is legal to remove their nests, eggs, chicks, and to trap and kill the adults. HOSPs cause so many problems for the Bluebirds that a Bluebird host really has to deal with them swiftly and diligently, never ever allowing them to nest inside any nest box. Even if the only thing you do is to plug up the hole to prevent the HOSPs from entering the box, that is doing something good for the Bluebirds. Once a male HOSP has laid claim to a box, it is really really hard to deter him. If you close it and wait patiently though, he will eventually move on. Of course, you may miss out on a chance to have the Bluebirds nest as a result. Still, that is better than allowing the HOSP to have the box. Bluebird pairs will raise 2-3 broods per year, so you still have plenty of time. If you can deter or eliminate the HOSP, and the Bluebirds build a nest in your box, you can place a "Sparrow Spooker" onto the box to deter the HOSPs. The sialis site tells you about those, and they can be purchased or made easily at home. I hope that helps you, and please feel free to e-mail me privately if you want to.~~Angie Here is a link that might be useful: Sialis/ Advice for New Bluebirders

I just did this too! They will abandon the nest if you don't take care of it, ASAP!! tonight if you can!. You need to do a nest change. There is good info on the sialis site about nest changes and how to do it. I got as much dried grass as I could and put it in an empty butter container. I tried to line it with pine needles, but I don't know where my female got hers?!! It took a few days, but then the second egg arrived along with a third! She was incubating a few days until a wren, I think, got two of them. Now they built another nest in my other box.. after all that work!! then you have to take care of the ants. They say grease the pole.. I put the liquid ant killer at the base on a plastic lid covered with a larger lid.. I hoped it would distract them from the nest, but I can't tell for sure if it worked since they moved.. but I didn't see any more ants in there. Good luck and keep us posted!

Let me know what you have and what i might provide in exchange! Thanks, Molly

My nesting box is mounted on a cedar post 5.5-6 feet off the ground, facing the east. No, we didn't put a baffle on it. I am still so sad about my babies. I could barely function last night, and I feel lost. Those babies and their parents were a large part of my daily enjoyment. I cleaned out the box with a paint scraper, hosed it out, sprayed with a 10% bleach solution and took the door off for a day, to hopefully let it dry out. (We have had too much rain over the past week.) We will get a baffle on the post by the weekend, believe me. Thank you for responding to my plea for help.