Thursday, April 7, 2011

Lizzie's new and improved chickadee house

A lot of people land on this blog because they google "should I clean out a chickadee nest box". The short answer is: yes.

Last year, when I cleaned out Lizzie's chickadee house, I took out a really cool nest made mostly of the neighbor's dog's hair. You can see the picture by clicking here. This year, when I cleaned it out a few weeks ago, it was entirely different.

The nest was almost entirely twigs and feathers. I never got a really good look at the bird going in and out but I know for certain it was either a marsh wren or a house wren and not a chickadee. Who knows who will nest in it this year but the little old bird house has competition with a new house on the block. I bought Lizzie a paint-your-own bird house kit and this is what she made:
Your guess is as good as mine as to what bird will decide this is its dream home. All I know is there's a two-and-a-half-year-old eagerly awaiting move-in day.