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You are always going to catch other birds. Don’t leave your trap unattended. I have even had a Cardinal in mine. Make sure you have water and food in the trap and you check it. I check mine every three hours.
I use cracked corn in mine. The yellow does seem to attract the HOSP
I’ve learned in another part of my life that I must learn to accept the things I cannot change, have the courage to change the things I can, and seek the wisdom to know the difference.
My role in helping bluebirds is to provide a nesting cavity and do my best to safeguard it from predators. Beyond that nature will run its course and I have to accept that.
I have no control over what happens to the birds after the leave my box (and to a fair extent while they are in it) and I just have to accept that I’m doing my best to help them and what will come after that is just part of nature.
Life is full of ups and downs but I just have to look at the big picture as much as possible.
The above is well said. We can’t control what goes on. It is all part of nature. However, if it was not for people like you and the rest here Bluebirds and other cavity nesters may not even exist. Keep your chin up and stick with it. You are helping way more than you think. Keep in your mind that many of the blues that are out there is because of your help and assistance.
This morning, just now using FireFox I could not log in at first. Every time I would put in my password and ID it would first tell me my password is wrong and then take me to a Yuko page of some sort. Not totally sure on the Yuko it was something like that or close. After trying about three times I finally got in.
It’s been my experience with wrens to keep taking sticks out and that keeps them busy. I’ve also have had them make me feel defeated also but rather than take the boxes down I would just open the sides right up for a week and all the pest would go away. So if your boxes open up I would try that before taking them down. good luck with what ever you decide. dlibby
I am using the Gilbertson box. When I say take them down all one can do is un clip them and remove..
The wrens have pretty much taken over all four of my boxes. The last two nights I had to take sticks out of all four of them. I am debating about just taking the boxes down for now until the hopefully leave.
If they would just leave one or two of the boxes alone so a Blue could come in I would not mind it so much. But it seems my area is full of the pesky little things.
Thanks Cari. I will try that again with my next one. I haven’t had a tragedy yet (this is my first year) but understand the problem and would like to help the native birds. The HOSP are certainly around and rearing their young. I don’t know how many are around but I see them more often than anything else.
HOSP are around because there is plenty of food. I feed birds in the winter to help them along. As soon as I put food out the HOSP come around when I really don’t see them before I put the food out. As soon as spring comes and I gradually stop the food the HOSP are gone. I do trap also.
Tonight there is a bluebird sitting on one of my pairs of boxes. He is looking at the one that had a nest started. Watching the wren take stuff out and putting sticks in. I would only wish he would build in the box he is sitting on but not as of yet. If I now destroy the wrens nest it will go after the other box from my past experience. The wrens nest is just started not cupped yet.
Well the worse or almost the worse. A wren is in one of the boxes and clearing out the nest. A wren blocker is way too late.
I am thinking I should just take the boxes down. I fought with the wrens all last summer and they won. :(
I think you should definitely leave them.
That answers my question. I have a bluebird flying around in my backyard right now. Not checking out the boxes though.
The nests are usually flat and compact after fledge though, right?
Yes but very messy and the whole nest is there at least in my experience. These nest are very clean like they’ve used new material I don’t know if I should empty them out or leave them be
What do you mean by cleaned out? Like, the nest gone?
Gone and started to rebuild. Look at the pictures I posted. Usually I clean them out,,, they are a mess the nest box. These look like they were cleaned pretty good and started to rebuild.
I’m confused – what kind of nest is this, what type bird?
Bluebird. Here is a picture of the male.
No sign of any Blues around today. I am enclosing pictures of the two nest boxes. Usually after a fledging the nest boxes are very messy. I usually after about a week clean them out. These are clean and looks like they started a new nest. There is no sign that these babies were harmed or any notice of nest around the area. It is like they cleaned the nest up and started new. Maybe they are planning on coming back later.
Multiple boxes do help sometimes. HOWR are just so aggressive that it can be very hard to occupy them with one box unless they have eggs. And, yes. Once a wren finds a hole he’s going back there repeatedly in the same season.
When a box is near wren territory, the first EABL cycle is often successful without HOWR interference if they can complete it early enough in the season. After that, it gets increasingly difficult.
Thcri, what fun to watch this! He’s a busy guy! If you are ANYWHERE near HOWR you need wren guards on both boxes now.
Last year the wrens tried occupying all of my boxes multiple times. I would go out there everyday and remove the nest they started. After a while I got sick of it and pulled the boxes. I don’t know if a guard will stop them but have already put on.
Just reading this scares me. I had HOSP’s so bad last year losing everything. This year my TRES came and left all in one day. However I do have two best boxes active with two females and as of today three eggs in each. I sure hope the wrens don’t come around.
And on top if it I think there us one male taking care of both. He is the only male I see and he flies back and forth to each of the nests.
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