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We just put out a new bluebird house within the past month. Right away we got sparrows, and I was able to get rid of their nest and haven’t seen them around again. Over the past week I have seen a male and female bluebird very frequently monitoring the house from the fence/surrounding structures, sitting on top of the house and going inside the house. When nest building was happening I couldn’t tell if they were bring the materials in the house but they were going in. The nest is very tall, it goes up about 3/4 of the house, and it is not neat like a typical bluebird nest. It also has a lot of dead leaves. It doesn’t have trash- which the prior sparrow nest did.
Would the bluebirds monitor and spend so much time at the house if this wasn’t their nest? I’m unsure of if I should get rid of the nest because it does look more like a sparrow nest than a bluebird nest but I have only seen the bluebirds spending time at the house. It’s been about a week or just under since nest building started, no eggs yet, I was hoping to see eggs for some kind of confirmation.
Despite the leaves, it looks like an unfinished EABL nest. There is a neat cup but no finer grass in it. I don’t think it’s HOSP.
I would take out some of the material at the bottom so that it’s not so high. You can do that by lifting the nest up and then sliding out about 1-2″ of what is at the bottom.
Gin
Atlanta, GAKatelyn – you’re right – does not look typical of BB nest – but I have had several which I was unsure, and I’ve been doing this 9 years. There is a post directly under yours where I posted a pic of nest in March I was unsure of, but it turned out to be BB. Your nest, however, is very tall (I’m assuming the top of nest is at the left side in picture). I zoomed in on pic and thought I saw some pine needles on the right side, which would mean BB, but maybe it is not. It probably is HOSP, but I would watch closely this weekend and maybe you will notice which is going in more, HOSP or BB. Guess you could wait until you see an egg and then you will know, but you have lost prime nesting time. More opinions needed. . . . .
Katelyn – Fantastic! This (and my own experiences) really makes me think “outside the box” as far as fine grass is concerned. I have questioned at least 4 or 5 nests which I thought were HOSP and turned out to be bluebirds. I truly believe the sure way to identify is that HOSP nests almost always have some sort of junk (plastic, string, etc) in their next and of course by witnessing the HOSP pair at the box. Bluebirds will not have junk in theirs. I suppose as far as the grasses are concerned, a lot would depend on what is available when they build – that is, early spring and no mowing yet might not yield fine, dry grasses. And like you said not all areas have pine needles, which are used a lot – they dry out easily.
P.S. The leaves in your nest threw me off guard, though.
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