I have been blown away by all the activity around my Bluebird house! As you can see by my previous posts here, I have watched one pair of Bluebirds move into my birdhouse within three days of setting it up back in the beginning of April. They built a nest, laid 5 eggs which all hatched. I’ve watched them, taken pictures inside the box, and yesterday they fledged while I was at work. I was so disappointed to miss them leaving the box, but there is no evidence to make me think they didn’t fledge yesterday.
I opened the box after I was convinced that the babies had left the nest, and removed the old nest. Had it not been for the impending bad weather and a meeting I had to attend, I would have finished scrubbing out the box yesterday. Today when I got home from work I peeked into the box, and couldn’t believe my eyes. A new Bluebird nest had already been started in the box.
I decided to finish cleaning out the box with Chlorox as there wasn’t that much of a nest completed, and I was sure they would be better off with it cleaned properly. The pair of Bluebirds were soon back checking it out. This must surely be a new pair of Bluebirds since the first pair will still be feeding their fledglings and teaching them to find their own food for another month, unless something ate the fledglings before they flew.
I think my Bluebirds must have a time share plan going on for them to have changed occupants so fast.
Copyright © 2008 by Janice Green
Filed under: birdhouses, birds | Tagged: timeshare Bluebirds |
QueenBJan's Weblog 
Hello Queenbjan…thanks for the comment. That’s neat how a new bluebird is already interested in your nest box. Right after the other one left! Good luck on future boxes!! I look forward to reading your blog and learning all I can from it.
Mario Ayoub
Thanks!
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen them today, and they haven’t tied again to rebuild the nest after I used the Chlorox on the house. I may need to hose it down really well to get the smell of the Chlorox out of the box, then let it air out and dry before closing it back up.
Update: I still see a pair of birds every now and then but have yet to see the babies. I hope they are OK. The parents haven’t continued their nestbuilding, so I don’t know if they will have a second nest in the bird house or not.
I could not find you email address anywhere so I am responding to you post instead. That would be great if you could come out and see the boxes. I cannot grant permission to the land myself but you could contact Earthspirit Educational Services: http://www.earthspiritedu.org/ Their email is earthspiritoffice@roadrunner.com
Tell them that Mario Ayoub refered you to them about visiting the nest boxes. After all, the boxes are only a few hours from Cornell. You can contact me at my email that I submitted with the post.
Mario Ayoub