Donna, thanks for letting her finish with her babies. How big is the entrance hole, if it is a very small one (less than 1&1/2") it is a Wren of some sort. You can go to www.whatbird.com to get an ID. It's hard to tell how long she will take unless you have a good idea of what day they hatch. You will notice a lot more coming and going while she is feeding them. As they get older and are nearing time to leave you will really hear them chirping when Mom comes with food. They should not take longer than 14 days once they hatch (not really sure of Wren timetable). Are your screens removable? if they are it may be a good time to take them down for a good cleaning. I think it will be a challenge for the babies to find the hole, is there any other opening for them to get out? Mom will eventually guide them out but it would be much easier on them if there was a bigger traget.

Many of the birds you mention aren't cavity nesters, so a nest box wouldn't matter. Probably chickadees are the most likely. If you put up a box for chickadees, of course make sure it's protected from predators with a baffle on the post or pole, especially since you mention cats and racoons. The hole size is 1 1/8", small enough that house sparrows and starlings won't be able to enter. One thing I read is that chickadees might prefer a larger hole to start with, like 1 1/4", and then once they have established use of the box, you can put a 1 1/8" hole reducer on. Much depends on the habitat in your yard and in the surrounding area. Chickadees seem to like the nest box to be on the edge of a woody or shrubby area. A chickadee box might also attract house wrens, so I guess it depends on whether you want to potentially host them or not. You don't mention what state you live in, so I don't know if you have house wrens. Other suggestions for nest boxes could be wood ducks (since you live near water), or even screech owls, which could use the same box as wood ducks. Or, you could try putting up an Owl Shack in the fall. I've got two up, no luck so far with screech owls, but the woodpeckers sure like to drum on that nice resonant box! If you have many dogs and cats running around your neighborhood, then you might not get anything at all. If that is the case, then you might not want to try and attract wood ducks, because they have to jump out of the box to make their way to the water, and would be easy targets for cats.

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!

As lisa likes to say....I don't think any bird police are going to be coming by your place if you remove that egg and nest. That is what I would do...but that is up to you. If you let them nest then there will be approx 7 more wrens to deal with next year....