Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!faline!thumper!ulysses!andante!princeton!udel!rochester!cornell!oravax!john
From: john@oravax.UUCP
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Nesting Bluebirds - box location
Summary: box height bluebirds predation hosp
Message-ID: <249@oravax.UUCP>
Date: 19 May 88 19:02:06 GMT
References: <4719@ihlpf.ATT.COM> <246@oravax.UUCP> <4769@ihlpf.ATT.COM>
Organization: Odyssey Research Ass., Ithaca NY
Lines: 21
Posted: Thu May 19 15:02:06 1988

Jim cited his bluebird box locations and asked if a lower than five
foot mounting would deter house sparrows.
Bluebirds prefer a box in an as open location as possible. The height
of the cavity opening should be around four feet. This tends to deter
some other cavity nesting competition. If you're in Black snake country,
you should also use a predator guard. I don't think your five foot
box height is excessive but would certainly try moving the box a bit
lower and discoutage HOSP nesting attempts by cleaning out the box
whenever they start building. 
We had a very successful trail in Maryland (over 400 boxes) and tried
all sorts of combinations. Where a HOSP population abounded we had no choice
but to discourage their building. Here in New York, I'm running into a
more frustrating problem as we have a small bluebird population and large
house wren population. To date, two nesting attempts have suffered
wren predation ( they enter the box and destroy the eggs). Although we
can thwart wren nesting attempts by removing the sticks, I know of no
solution to the egg predation as the wren is protected.
Sorry we can't solve your problem. Try the lower box and sparrow nest
removal. Let me know how you make out.
An informative book on blubirds was written by Larry Zeleny a few years
ago; believe it's called THE BLUEBIRD.