Nest site selection

Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 18:08:47 -0500
From: "Claire Meyners" cawm"at"worldnet.att.net
Subject: Nest Selection Study

Katherine and other,

I am participating in Cornell's nest selection study.  Last year I had 10 nestbox pairs (20 boxes total).  This year I have 9 pairs.  My experience between the 2 years has been quite different--so I think the jury is still out on this one.  Lots more data is needed.

Last year the EABLs started nesting much later than they did this year. (The winter had been harder and I had pulled a number of dead bluebirds out of the boxes in early March.)  At the time of first nest attempt  4 of the cleaned boxes and 3 of the boxes with nests were occupied by EABLs.  I also had 1 of the boxes with nests occupied by a tree swallow (a rarity around here). HOWEVER, the other 6 boxes with nests had wasp problems.  We were still in our Buddhist phase at that time and were just removing cones--so the queens kept returning, so it is no wonder these boxes were not used.  Subsequently we were taken in hand by a Professor at UMSL (Univ. of MO at St. Louis) who has 200 wasp boxes on the same property.  (His life's work is paper wasps!) He set us to killing the queens, but by then the weather had heated up so that the wasps usually either escaped or dropped down into the nest material (which I couldn't remove because the nests were part of the paired study). Two boxes where we got the wasps were subsequently occupied by EABLs at the time of nest attempt #2, and one box had repeat use by an EABL.  (Another was subsequently occupied by a house wren.)

5 of the cleaned boxes were occupied at nest attempt #2 by EABLs, but these boxes were also heavily used by wrens, 3 at the time of nest attempt #1 and 3 at the time of nest attempt #2.  (Last year the bluebirds did not get much of a headstart on the wrens--so there was much more competition, which the bluebirds generally lost.)

To date this year, the experience is very different--but we are also much more on top of the wasp problem this year.  Out of the 9 boxes with nests, 6 have EABLs in them at this moment, and 1 has a chickadee.  Only 2 have had any wasp problems, but the EABLs got started nesting much earlier this year, so they got the jump on wasps.  Of the 9 boxes that were cleaned, only 1 has been occupied by an EABL, and 1 by a chickadee (subsequently evicted by the recently returned tree swallow).

I think that if we had been on top of the wasp problem from the very beginning last year, then maybe last year's experience would have more closely mirrored this years.  But, I also find it interesting that the house wrens seem to be showing a definite preference for the cleaned boxes.  The nests I left in boxes, were all "good" nests this year.  I replaced messy ones with good ones from boxes not in the study.

This has turned into a major ezzzy--hope you get something out of it.

Claire
Wildwood, Missouri
Nestbox Trail at Gray Summit, Missouri

Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 20:21:47 -0400
From: "Bruce Burdett" blueburd"at"srnet.com
Subject: Re: Nest Selection Study

Claire, (et al): - The amount of wren competition you're getting suggests to me that your houses are too close to thickets, undergrowth, overgrown tree lines, bushes, - something like that. Is that possibly the case?
Bruce Burdett, Sunapee NH blueburd"at"srnet.com

From: crystal hill [mailto:crystaljhill"at"msn.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2004 9:35 AM
Subject: Re: disappointed

Same here the Blue's come and go, we can see them for a week at a time like clock work early in the mornings or evenings, then they just vanish for a while to reappear.

Last year we had a pair come check out the box everyday for a week, then leave for about 2 weeks, to come back and start building a nest.

I have not seen a Blue since Monday here (after seeing them for several days in a row), but I am in hopes they return.....So don't give up, and good luck

Crystal - Social Circle, GA 

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