Late in the spring a pair of sparrow sized birds built a nest in our mailbox. After a week, they gave up.
The mailbox wasn't a bad idea. Dry. Off the ground. Dark. But the mailman visited daily, we visited daily. The garbage men, neighbors walking, neighbors mowing, UPS and FedEx and Amazon delivery guys. Everytime someone came, the birds would leave. And the birds quickly became tired of us and left to try elsewhere.
After it was clear they had left, I removed their nest from the box (actually, from the newspaper cubby hole below the box). Here is the cleaned box
A month later another pair built a nest. I don't know the species, but at least the male had a bit of blue on his back. This pair lasted longer and were more tolerant of us visitors.
But it was hot and the box was in the direct sunshine. Too hot, it turns out.
After a month, the birds began to give up. For a couple more weeks, one of them would return a few times a day to check things out, but mostly they went elsewhere.
Another month went by and I knew they were gone, so I removed the second nest. And found these four lovely eggs. I was rather surprised to find they could lay eggs at all in that environment.
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| From the outside, you can't see the eggs. |
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| But when the nest is pulled partway out, the eggs appear Check out the first picture. Note the flat part of the nest, where it was built next to the back side of the box. |
I need to find a way to get rid of that newspaper cubby. We don't use and I don't want to see another failed attempt at nesting.
