Despite the rain off and on all day I needed to be outside doing something. So I spent a few hours cleaning out the old nestboxes and searching in the basement for the new hangers I bought last fall.All of the old boxes were full of sticks from the house wrens. I found a cranky looking little black spider in the bottom of one of the boxes and felt bad for disturbing his slumber.
I spread the boxes out a bit more and put one in the magnolia at the fr
ont of the house. Not sure if I'll get anyone there, but it's worth trying, I suppose. I was tempted to buy a house with a larger hole for carolina wrens, but was afraid that would only encourage the house sparrows to nest. A few times I've had chickadees (think that's them peeping out of the box at right). I like to ref
er to the book at left for help in deciding where to place a nest box and other questions about how to be a good landlord for birds nesting on your property. It's a good book for beginners and includes tips on attracting and feeding birds, good plants for birds and butterflies and some info about hummingbirds. It was one of the first I bought about birds and has been a good general reference through the years.
1 comment:
We cleaned a couple of old nests out of some of the slightly less accessable bird houses also. It is so great to be outside doing spring things!
We have Songbirds in Your Garden (an old well-worn copy) You are right "good general reference"
How nice for the birds to have magnolia blossoms just outside their front door.
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