Excellent point about scratching up the interior of the box, Walt. The
insides of natural cavities certainly aren't like finished lumber! I learne=
d
that the hard way many years ago....put up a nice (or so I thought) box for
tree swallows...one soon checked it out, and I heard it scuffling around
inside the box for quite awhile. I thought it was merely 'inspecting', but =
a
check on progress a couple days later revealed a DEAD tree swallow...and it
hadn't been cold, nor had other birds been in the box. Apparently the desig=
n
was such that the bird couldn't quite fly back up to the hole, and was
trapped. As you say, it's likely more important for the chicks than the
adults, but I've never made another box without some sort of 'ladder' up to
the hole; I often staple some screening or wire mesh if I don't have the sa=
w
nearby.
I found your observation on hole size interesting. I've been making houses
with the 'recommended' 1 9/16 inch hole for mountain bluebirds (and so far
have attracted many many tree swallows) but will switch this year to 1 3/4
inches. There is no threat from sparrows or starlings where I put these
boxes.
On the topic of recording...I was at a meeting awhile back where someone wa=
s
showing the 'nest box cam' they were selling. Showed a very entertaining
'battle' between a wood duck hen & nest and a hooded merganser hen that was
trying to dump eggs. Describing the woody as 'intolerant' is being very
polite...this continued after hatching - the woody hen would put the run on
baby mergs that tried to follow her (obviously the hen hoody had been
successful in dropping a few eggs in the woody's nest). The sound quality
was abysmal, but the video was good.
Mark Phinney
on 1/27/05 11:33 AM, Walter Knapp at wrote:
>
> From: "J Young" <>
>
>>
>> Thanks for that bluebird box info Walt. I'm going to get busy putting so=
me
>> together while this damn snow has me hanging around the homestead a bit =
more
>> than usual.
>
> One thing I realized I failed to mention. I normally score the inside of
> the front board below the nest hole. Make it easier for the young to get
> out, the adults seem to fly out straight from the floor. I just set the
> saw height so it will only cut about 1/8" into the board and saw several
> runs only in the center of the board below the hole. Kind of ladder
> rungs for them. I've put up boxes with no scoring too and they work as we=
ll.
>
> We cut out 8 boxes yesterday, but did not get them all assembled as we
> ran out of siding screws. Took about 2 hours. We are using 12 siding
> screws per box. Plus the 4 stainless for the front and the 2 mounting
> screws.
>
> Good luck getting the bluebirds going. If you get the boxes up early
> enough you have a good chance. The males do a lot of early scouting,
> which is what's really going on here right now. Later the females join
> in and they are the ones that make the final choice from what the male
> shows them.
>
> Walt
>
>
>
>
>
> "Microphones are not ears,
> Loudspeakers are not birds,
> A listening room is not nature."
> Klas Strandberg
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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