Hi Kathleen- I'll address you since the other posts are old. I am so very sorry that you have experienced this. Did you read what the responses were to the older post of one that lost a bluebird on the nest? I would just repeat everything that they said. If absolutely no sign of injury, I would suspect lawn pesticides, but considering what happened to the 1st person that posted & didn't see signs of injury on her bluebird, it did turn out to be house sparrows. I would highly suspect this. Do you think the female is dead too? If so, again I would be suspicious of HOSP. Answering your question, the male would not starve himself, nor is he able to brood eggs. If the female died too, the eggs wouldn't have hatched because the female is the one to incubate the eggs. She has a brooding patch on her lower abdomen that the male doesn't have. If she is alive, she may not be returning to nest because of the failed nest situation, especially if there was foul play. Make sure you know that she is not returning before removing the nest & eggs. If she is alive, she will probably try to find a new mate. Without repeating too much, make sure your birdhouse is on a pole with a baffle & put a sparrow spooker up after the 1st egg. If you know for sure that the nest has been abandoned & you don't get any activity, you may want to change the location of the box (birdhouse). If you immediately get a house sparrow setting up shop, then you'll know that was most likely the culprit. Again, if female is not returning, now would be the time to get a Van Ert trap for your house to trap the male & female HOSP. If you do, make sure you are monitoring every hour if possible so you don't trap a native bird. They can die in there if without food for too long. One of the previous posts left a website for the Van Ert trap. Again, the previous posts left great advice for your situation. This site is not as active as it used to be for bluebirders, so you may want to post to bluebirdnut.com. Lots of bluebird experts are on that site like this one used to have. That's where I go whenever I need advice. BTW, I lived in Atlanta for ten years (live in AL now). Very sorry to hear about your bluebird tragedy. Hope you'll have another pair come for a future nesting, but definitely get that sparrow spooker!

Hi again Donna, Thanks for the link! I have been out of town, but when I returned there was the start of a soft grassy nest like the blues build. Today, the box is filled almost to the top with sticks on top of the grass nest. Looks like I have a competing species of birds. I'm online now to find out what kind of bird builds this type of nest. If it is a sparrow, I guess it's best to remove it. I'm sure they'll rebuild though. Can you put the sparrow spooker up to help with this or is it only after eggs are laid? Thanks.

I took out a hosp in my bluebird house about a month ago. Tree swallows had nested and were just completing the nest when a hosp was sticking his head out the box, chirping that gawd awful sounding chirp. Like he was excited he took over their nest. One pellet from 10 yards away, went into the box to collect my bounty. I've done the passive route, doesn't work. They kill anything and everything. So, I remove them. What I have learned is, trapping them with a repeating trap only brings them in to another food source. If you aren't killing them, you are encouraging them. I've noticed that once you start shooting them, they will get the hint. They are still prevalent in my neighborhod, but clearly avoid my yard, houses and feeders. A small pump pistol pellet gun with scope was under $75 bucks and for me it works great. Its small enough for me to target hosp, without my neighbors knowing what I'm doing. Its quiet enough for them to not hear a shot ring out and lethal at 10 yards from my shooting rest that I can make a quick kill. And, on weekends or winter, its safe and quiet to shoot indoors in my basement at 10 yards into a pellet trap.. perfect to keep me accurate. Its not for everyone, but these are an invasive species... no different than the round gobie that has taken over the Great Lakes. DEC says its illegal to release you must kill them. I see hosp as no different. Good luck to all of you in your BB and TRES nest sites this season.

Thanks for the replies! The thing is, there HAS been a nestbox available both years. Last year it was on a pole (and I've got an extra baffle for the pole if necessary), and this year I've used it as a HOSP trap and mounted it on the house and then on a tree. The blues have never shown any interest in the nest box, where ever it was. Never even seen them go in or sit on it. They nested their first brood last year in another snag that had a hole about 20 feet up, but that snag fell over last summer so they moved to the one they like now. The only birds showing interest in the nest box have been the HOSPs (trapped 1 last year, 2 this year with the Van ert) and some HOWRs last year after which I removed their sticks and left the box open. Fortunately this year the HOSPs have since stayed away more or less and no sign of any HOWRs. X my fingers they stay away. I speculate that perhaps these birds were raised in natural cavities and that is what they're most comfortable with? There must be some way to baffle the tree?