I checked three of our blue bird nest boxes last week and they all showed signs of nest-building!

I happened to go by two of them as I was trucking water out to the wildlife water dishes and decided to check them. After seeing those two with nests in them, I checked on one by the house and it too contained a nest. I think the odds are that all of them have nests in them, but because of the rains we haven’t had a chance to check them all.

The first one was right next to one of the wildlife water dishes on the eastern edge of our property. The nest is made of grass stems and fills about half of the box. You can see the cedar shavings, that were in the box at the start, at the bottom.

I couldn’t see any eggs in the nest, but the view into the nest was difficult because it was filling so much of the box. I will take a mirror next time to be able to see inside. Eastern bluebirds make their nests from grasses, so this might be one.

The next box is further south on the same eastern fence line. This one is definitely made of different materials than the first one. It appears to contain grass, twigs, feathers, and fur. It also appears to be at an earlier stage of construction, but that’s only a guess because it’s smaller. It looks looser and more disorganized than the first one. My guess is this one is another bird species, but I don’t know which.

It stopped raining today and the sun is shining. Maybe we’ll make the nest box rounds and get a full inventory of the activity. Along with all the other signs of spring, the birds are building homes!