Sunday, March 8, 2015

Cleaning House


 
I read that you are supposed to clean out bird houses in the winter. I started to do it around Thanksgiving and then saw a bird flying in to one of our houses. 

 

We have a whole row of them.

 

This one was easy to do.  It was built by a friend of mine from the library.  He made a little Plexiglas window so you can monitor the birds and slide it down to clean out the old nesting material. 

 

I think they need to be cleaned to keep mites and spiders from living in there.  We did find some spiders and I wore gloves to keep from having problems with the mites.  Then the wind picked up and blew bits into my face.  I did not have a face glove and figure I must have eaten a few of any mites inhabiting the nests.  yuck. 

We also found some unhatched eggs, so those were good to get out, too.

 

Some of the bird houses did not have a back door to clean them out.  We used a screwdriver and needle nose pliers to grab and push the debris out of the houses.

 


So now they are clean (mostly) and ready for the new inhabitants come spring.

And I am so ready for spring.

7 comments:

  1. What a good birder you are. We once waited a little too long to clean our the nesting material, and dumped newborns on the ground. So heartbreaking. I'll never do that again. thanks for letting me purge my guilt :)

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    1. You must have been horrified! I forgot to clean them out last year and then they were occupied again. Bad landlord.

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  2. miss having my bird houses, can't have them here. Good idea with the plexiglass.

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    1. There is a downside to bird houses in a city. Bird leavings and all.....

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  3. And now so are your bird visitors ready for spring. Just like Gill commented we also can't have bird houses/feeders which is not a big disappointment for me. I did enjoy them in VA.

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    1. I have heard there are webcams where you can enjoy them remotely. Put an iPad in a window and pretend they are yours!

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  4. I would totally love having bird houses, but one of our dogs is a bird killer,so i hesitate on attracting birds to nest here. Yours look so nice all in a row.

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