Air Arms Owners Club

i watched a bird enter the bird box that the bluebirds are nesting in and didn't think it was a bluebird...a few seconds later a bird stuck it's head out and dropped a bluebird egg shell, i thought maybe the chicks were hatching but i know the bluebirds will take the shells some distance from the nest to dispose of them so as not to expose the nest to predators...then another egg came out and i could tell by it's trajectory that it was not empty...it was a house wren and it had pecked a hole in all 5 eggs, i dropped it with a shot right through the head...

i don't like messing with mother nature but the whole reason for the boxes that i purchase and assemble and care for are for the bluebirds as so many non-native species have taken over their natural sites...i love the house wren's song and it's the first one i've dropped in the 35 odd years i've been cultivating the bluebird population...i now attribute the house wrens to so many bluebird nests that the bluebirds have abandoned in the past...i will continue to control the house wrens as i do the house sparrows and starlings and cowbirds...zp...

Sometimes Mother Nature needs a little help.
BBF

Blackbaronfish wrote:Sometimes Mother Nature needs a little help.
BBF

hey bbf...the downy woodpeckers get in the boxes and tear the front of the box up but i don't shoot them as they are just making the nest box more suitable to them...i have a pair of tree swallows in the third box and they're doing fine, i opened it up to see if the wren had been in there too but the female was on the eggs and didn't budge when she saw me, pretty cool...

i have a pair of red tail hawks that are here everyday picking up the snacks that i leave out there and they are magnificent, they are here all year...the mulberries are ripening and a multitude of birds are coming in, the cedar waxwings are always first and are a lovely bird...through the summer there will be just about every songbird you can imagine and some you can't stopping by to eat then poop on my back stoop...zp...