Back in May I had discovered some Black-capped Chickadees took to one of my nest boxes. I was rather excited about this. A few days later I noticed a House Wren at the box. The Wren had destroyed the Chickadees developing nest. I was upset about this. I returned a day later and was pondering on setting up another box. To my surprise, the Chickadees were back in the nest box, starting over. So I left them alone. I return a couple days later to find their 2nd nest was also destroyed by this Wren. Frustrated and confused was I on top of being upset.
I decided to move the nest box as I thought it was unfair to these Chickadees that every time they start to build a nest, in comes the Wren to destroy it. I felt responsible since it was I who set up this nest box. I remember as I took the box down and pulled out the t-post, starting my walk to where I was going to this set up next and in came the pair of Chickadees. They were voicing some disapproval or "WTF?" above my head. I'm trying to help and now the birds are making me feel bad.
Long story short is that the original box was moved slightly north/east of the original location, by 150 ft or so. I also installed a PVC tube style box about 200 ft west of the original spot. It was my hopes the Chickadees would find this one and the Wren would take the original. Half my wish came true as the Chickadees did find the new box and went to work right away. I had filled it with aspen wood chips and the birds were excavating within 2 days. The Wren never took to the original box. He seems to stay across the rail tracks and my guess is the original box was in line of sight, that this was some sort of territorial thing. Really I don't know.
End result is the Chickadees had 7 eggs. All 7 eggs hatched. All 7 young successfully fledged. I am so happy about this outcome.
I know what a Wren is capable of. Last year we had a Chickadee nest in another area, also with 7 eggs. Four young not much more than a day old with 3 eggs soon to hatch when along came a House Wren who tossed all the young out of the box and he pipped the eggs. Of course that was it for the Chickadee nest. The adults left, the young perished and those eggs would never hatch. The Wren was already building a nest over top of the Chickadees' nest. You can understand a little more on all that I was feeling with this nest, this year.
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