Oh crap!! Saw the Nuthatch this morning and things looked normal. Our weather took a nosedive and the temps are 30 degrees cooler today then they have been for the last few days. Cold and windy. So just before lunch I look outside and see a bird fly up to the Nuthatch hole. Grabbed the binocs and OMG it was a male HOSP. looking into the box. I ran outside, it flew to a tree in the woods, I don’t think I scared it at all as I was still about 100 feet from the box when I went out the door. I ran out and checked the box though cause I had no clue if the HOSP had been there before that or not, the birdhouse is at an angle from our house so not that easy to see and you need binoculars. No nuthatch in the box and the eggs were all hidden, lots of grey fur or something covering everything, thank GOD they don’t have a nestcup or I bet that HOSP would have been in there in a heartbeat destroying those eggs! Now what do I do?? No clue if Nuthatches will tolerate a sparrow spooker but I couldn’t do nothing so I put one up. I watched a lot this afternoon but never saw the Nuthatches come back, although I could have missed them but I have been seeing them so much in the morning that I thought for sure I would have seen them. Of course this change in weather would mean hunting bugs would be harder so maybe she was out finding food. Tree Swallows have left too. So anyway I am going nuts here not knowing if the Nuthatches came back or if the HOSP scared them away before I even saw it, or if the spooker has scared them. I did not want to open the box up later as it was raining then too. Ugh! Damn HOSP!! I am so hoping I see them normally tomorrow morning!! If I don’t I might tie all but one streamer on each dowel up. I only put three on each one and with the bigger overhang of the Xbox I can’t see it really bothering them but who knows. They land on the side mostly anyway and climb around to the front.
I saw the bluebirds once this morning but then not again at all after that. Chickadees are everywhere and liking that the swallows left but still don’t seem to be trying to build in any of the birdhouses although one pair is excavating a cavity just in our woods line. I can actually watch them from the house with a pair of binoculars.
Donna in WI