The red leaves at the top is new growth. As the leaves mature the turn maroon then will turn green if in the shade or covered by other leaves. It will stay maroon if in the sun.

I am from Rhode Island Trail is in northern RI Bluebirds are not hardy there flocks crash will high snow levels. And cold. Mild seasons they expand there local numbers. When there found dead in spring means there food supply was low and they expired. You will also see some dead threw out spring after a late cold snap the birds will just end up missing but we know it was the late cold snap. Many are weaken from the trip north once they show up and winter returns large numbers perish. It weeds out the old and sick. Ray

Mimi, the snake trap is fine as long as you monitor it. If a snake becomes trapped, you must be nearby to release it or it can become entangled and die. Instead, I recommend that you baffle your nestboxes--I use the stovepipe baffle on all 35+ nestboxes that I monitor and I have never lost an egg, nestling or adult bird to a climbing predator. The stovepipe I use is 6" in diameter and 24" long . . . others use 8" diameter stovepipe. It is important to install the baffles so that they wobble as this keeps climbing predators such as raccoons from being able to shimmy up to the nestbox. I also recommend using the hardware cloth (as shown on the link below) as this entices snakes to climb inside the baffle towards daylight. Since they cannot get through the hardware cloth, they become frustrated and leave. I know for certain that there are snakes at all my nestbox locations, including the ones here at the house, and I also know that these baffles work and are doing their job! Kathy Here is a link that might be useful: Predator Baffles

I am no expert, but my guess would be that the HOSPs will come back, but the Bluebird won't. Any chance you could leave that house up to trap, and put up another for the Blues? What I would do is next time the HOSP build a nest in the box, leave the nest (the whole thing as long as it doesn't interfere with the trapping mechanism - only take out what you have to if it does) and then set the trap. Other birds will be less likely to enter if there's a HOSP nest, and the HOSP won't be able to resist going in.