Ken there is no reason for them to be at the box until all the eggs are laid and the mother is ready to sit on them and keep them warm. In hot weather she will sit on them less; sometimes she will rest on the edge of the nest and just stay with the eggs even though they don't need her warmth. I have a camera in the nestbox so I have observed this. My experience has been that once they start laying the mother lays one egg each day every day until she is finished. I have never known there to be gaps between laying. Do you know exactly when the eggs were laid? There should be one new egg every day.

Boy can I relate to your frustration. Those wrens ruin so many nests. Sorry about your Blues being chased out. Those wrens are just awful.

Hey Zach, I posted that pic on another forum once and one guy said "where's the bird??" haha I absolutely hated eventually pulling most of the volunteer milkweed out of the garden because it shaded some other things too much and got so tall it would fall over. I couldn't believe how big it got.......about 9'! We have about 35 acres that are woods and field, but we're letting the field do whatever it wants. We have tons of milkweed. Unfortunately, in the past couple of years, we hardly have any butterflies. :( Hopefully that's just a temporary thing. But the milkweed is popping up everywhere now, so our fingers are crossed that the monarchs and others will see them and come visit. tmc.....do you have Carolina wrens too? They can pick some of the funniest places to build their nests. I posted a pic on here of one this spring that built it's nest in a pot that I had made long ago and left it on the porch. They can sure belt out their song.

Cute, tmc. Do you know how many are in there? Do you have that box mounted on a pole?