Hi Tiffany,
You shouldn't be haunted by what happened to your bluebirds. Even birds
need to be kept limited in number so predation has to take place to some
extent.
It's good for people to create habitat around their homes, but it's
unrealistic to expect no predation at all to ever occur. Predation keeps the
world habitable. We may not like it and find it sad, but it's how the world
works and it's absolutely necessary.
If you have a box on a pole, the pole should have a baffle on it to make it
more difficult for predation to take place. My experience has been that
snakes, for example, get into nest boxes on trees, on average, only once
every 3 years.
So if you find that predators are getting into a structure much more often
than that, there is something wrong with the set-up or the location. You
should try to do something about it so birds won't try to again nest there.
You shouldn't feel guilty or stupid; obviously the birds didn't recognize
either that there would be a problem. What's important is that we do our
best to create habitat and if something doesn't work, that we learn from it
and try an alternative.
I hope this is helpful. If you have any questions, please feel free to
contact me.
Sincerely,
Marlene
Marlene A. Condon (Author, The Nature-friendly Garden, Stackpole Books)
Naturalist and Writer/Photographer/Speaker
Crozet, VA 22932-2204
E-mail: MARLENECONDON@xxxxxxx
_www.MARLENECONDON.com_ (http://www.marlenecondon.com/)
In a message dated 3/17/2012 11:28:37 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
tiffyt123@xxxxxxx writes:
We put up our nestbox several days ago, and a chickadee is already
building a nest. I think the house/hole is sized for bluebirds. Last year, we
lived here (in VA) and had house wren babies. The past years in Texas,
Arkansas
and Kansas we've had bluebirds (we're military). Is there anything I need
to do to the box or otherwise, to assist or help protect them? We lost a
bluebird nest many years ago to an unknown predator and it's haunted me ever
since! Would appreciate some advice. I will leave it alone until I'm
absolutely sure of what to do or not to do.
Tiffany
Falls Church, VA
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