Last year at our cabin in Door County, WI, I put up two nestboxes and had chickadees nest in both of them (Who’s In My Nestboxes). I was hoping for bluebirds, but chickadees certainly are a welcome second choice.
I was excited to find out who might use the nests this year, especially since I added another box and moved one to a new spot. First the chickadees came back and posed for some awesome photos! The babies weren’t quite as photogenic as last year, but still so cute.
Then came the house wrens in the new stone birdhouse from my mom.
House wrens make messy nests of twigs and other large items that seem almost impossible for those tiny birds to move. The nest cup itself is a small depression in the twigs and is lined with soft material like feathers, grasses and plant materials.
Another pair of house wrens quickly nested in the new bluebird house we put up. In this nest, I was especially fascinated by the q-tip as nest material.
But most unexpectedly, in the nestbox we moved to the edge of the woods a bluebird moved in! Bluebirds make deep, delicate nests of grass or pine needles. The eggs are pretty powder blue color.
To help out the nesting pair, I put out a mealworm feeder nearby. Two thirds of a bluebird’s diet is made up of insects and the rest being fruit. Bluebirds don’t tend to eat birdseed and they may occasionally eat suet, but they love mealworms.
There is some debate as to whether they’ll eat the dried ones like I bought, or prefer live ones. I find all of them a little gross, so I thought I’d start with the dried ones. I’m not there all the time to feed them, so it’s been hard to tell who’s eating it. I did have to get a rain cover for the feeder to keep it from being a mushy mess, but I had plenty laying around so not a problem.
Who else is around? I have a robin condominium 🙂
Here at home I had a house wren start a nest in a backyard nestbox. Not sure why it was abandoned, but may have been that my sprinkler was accidentally blasting it. Fixed that problem, but it may have been too late. Or, it was just a “dummy nest” that house wrens often build to claim their territory.
Have you had any birds nesting at your place this year? I hear a lot of young fledglings calling for their moms these days!
Stephanie, pictures are great and the q tip nest reminds us how creative birds are. I love the blue eggs.
My question is about hummingbirds. I purchased a small perch hummingbird feeder and followed all the instructions carefully( Wild Birds Unlimited), but alas no visitors. I’ve mixed up new batches of sugar water, have red flowers around. The feeder is on the North side of my deck and it does get a fair amount of sun in the summer. It hangs over to the grass and there is a maple tree and pines back there. Do you have any ideas for me?
Thanks, Kit
I’m surprised you haven’t had any hummingbirds. They tend to find the feeders pretty quickly and it sounds like you’ve made it an inviting space. But, having said that, I haven’t had as many here as I have the last few years. I was actually wondering if something was going on. In WI things seem normal. Keep trying and hopefully they find it.