Mailboxes used for Nestboxes

Earlier posts on this topic are probably found under Nesting Cavities other than Nestboxes and Horizontal (Zuern Tree Branch) Boxes

Keith Kridler 50*F in Mt. Pleasant, Texas this morning!!!
In the past there have been a LOT of different trail monitors who designed nestboxes to fit mounted to the back ends of mailboxes or mounted beside the mailbox utilizing this mounting pole. Most of the time it was because people noticed the high numbers of bluebirds using paper tubes and mailboxes and that these seemed to be successful as the bluebirds returned year after year to nest in these same mailboxes.

Like several of you mentioned it would be safer for the birds if the boxes were mounted to face away from the roadways. Normally the borrow/bar ditches are mowed by someone and this creates a short grass feeding area for bluebirds. Fence lines behind mailboxes often contain trees or shrubs that allow safe haven for young birds on their first flight.

Predators: This is interesting that these short mounted nestboxes seem to be so successful. Mailboxes and paper tubes will have all kinds of strange ink and glue scents coming from them. They will also have lots of human scent that will NOT scare away predators but if you think about it not THAT many mailboxes will have food in them and a raccoon would have to climb hundreds of mailbox poles to find that rare one with a bird nest in it. Odds are it would be time better spent going to find a dog or cat dish filled with food.
On busy roads, cars whizzing by will stir up the air and mix car exhaust with the scent from the bird nesting in a paper tube.

Also depending on the roadway and the area of the country MANY car drivers actually swerve out of their lanes to smack an animal and then very often even if you try to miss an animal on the highway they run the wrong way at the last possible instant and you hit them anyway. Smart raccoons, cats and dogs will DART across busy highways and will try to avoid staying out in the open along the roadways.

Low mounted nestboxes seem to be less successful out in predator infested areas but a nestbox mounted to or right alongside a mailbox would blend in and actually be less noticeable to predators and maybe even competitor birds. It is strange but in my area about the only bird building nests in abandoned mailboxes are the bluebirds. Do House Wrens fill up all the paper tubes up North? It would seem to me that these are just what this species of wren would look for! I don't recall finding Carolina Wrens nesting in mailboxes or paper tubes along the roadways but they build in wall hanging mailboxes attached to houses on your front porch.

Seems like it would be easy to build and market a "bird lovers" mailbox that met NABS requirements where you could have a two compartment mailbox with one end for the junk mail and one end for the birds. KK

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