Everything looks good to go for the season other than some pole grease and wood chips in the nest tube to hopefully bring back the Black-capped Chickadees for another year.
The Chickadee nest tube. Some of you may recall the battle I had with a male House Wren constantly making life hell for the Chickadees at another box nearby.
After the Chickadees left the nest tube last year, I put in new wood chips in case they wanted to nest again. The birds cleaned most of the chips out but did not re-nest. It was worth a shot. I had a pair re-nest in our backyard box one summer.
It seems a Downy Woodpecker used this nest box to roost in throughout the winter. We also experienced this at home with a couple of our boxes. Too bad they won't nest in a box as I'm told they prefer to make their own nest cavities.
I will leave the box as is for another few weeks in case the bird still uses it at night.
This box is probably going to need replacing after the season. It had a nest started in it last year but the birds abandoned it. The year before that, Swallows did nest successfully in it.
It was a quiet walk, lacking birds other than 1 Northern Cardinal I could hear. Eyes were upon me from one of the watchers of the woods high above me.
Here's hoping to a better nest season than last year here but 7 Chickadees and 5 Swallows fledgling is nothing to complain about.
