Chickadee Nest in Your Bluebird House –Take These Steps Immediately

You go to check your bluebird nest box, and instead of seeing nicely cupped straw or pine needles, you see sprigs of moss and peeled bark, maybe even a little bit of fur. These are all signs you have a chickadee nest. If you found a chickadee nest in your bluebird house, DO NOT remove it. Instead, confirm you actually have a chickadee nest and protect with a 1 1/8-inch hole reducer and baffle. You can also add another bluebird box about 50 feet or more away.

This might not have been the answer you were hoping for. Perhaps you’ve had resident bluebirds in that box year after year, and this year they were a little late to the game. A lot of trail monitors actually go through this, but after years of monitoring trails and nest boxes, they understand the importance of letting our native cavity nesters thrive. And honestly, chickadees are a darling bird to have. Their nests are something out of a fairytale.

Important: Did a chickadee invade an active bluebird nest?

There have been rare reports of chickadees entering active (eggs/nestlings) bluebird nests. In that case, we have another article about that. This article is dedicated to chickadees building nests in vacant bluebird nest boxes.

Before we dive in on what you should do if you discover a chickadee nest, let’s just be sure you have a chickadee nest.

How to confirm you have a chickadee nest in your bird house

There are a few key indicators you have a chickadee nest, and it has to do with the nesting material. Look for:

1. Moss – moss (lichen) make up the base of chickadee nests for both black capped chickadees and Carolina chickadees.
2. Peeled bark – In the mix you’ll see peeled bark mixed in with the moss. There will be more moss in the mix than any bark. The peeled bark will look a bit like tiny, stripped mulch.
3. Fur – You know your chickadee is getting close to finishing her nest when you see bits of fur. Initially, the fur will be in wads. Then she will move around in the nest, positioning the fur just the way she likes it.
4. A small cup – Chickadee nests will have a small cup. Sometimes it’s a bit of a deep cup or hidden behind a wall of moss, making it a bit hard to see. If you don’t have a nest camera, it helps to use a phone camera to look inside the nest to see the cup.
5. Covered eggs – Don’t dig around in the nest box, but if you see eggs covered a bit by fur, it’s a good sign you have a chickadee.
6. Observing chickadee activity in the nest box – One of the best ways to confirm who has been building a nest in your nest box, especially early on, is to observe. If you’ve seen chickadees going in and out of your box, then you have confirmation.

One thing we want to point out is that chickadee nests can be confused with titmice nests. Both are native. So never remove the nest either way. But a 1 1/8-inch hole reducer on a nest box with titmice will be too small for them. We encourage you to watch the nest to be certain you have chickadees in your birdhouse to prevent any confusion between the two species.

Now that you have confirmation, here’s what to do:

Initial steps to take when you discover a chickadee nest in your bluebird box.

1.      Congratulate yourself – You are now a proud chickadee landlord with a special responsibility.

Whether you have a family of black-capped chickadees or Carolina chickadees, you have the special honor of taking care of these sweet little birds.

Just as you pride yourself on your bluebird care, you now get to take pride in protecting another special bird that is up against a lot. Take a moment to celebrate and get excited about nest building and child rearing. Enjoy the new bird observations you’ll be able to witness.

It might not be the bird you were hoping for, but don’t despair. Chickadees only have one brood per year, which means a bluebird or tree swallow may yet show up afterward. Plus, you can always add another nest box for bluebirds.

**It is very important not to be selective or exclusive when it comes to our native birds nesting! Instead, frame your heart and mind towards conservation. Your goal as a responsible backyard bird landlord is to promote peace between native species and create a place that allows the native ecosystem to thrive.

2.      Recognize their obstacles.

These little guys are much smaller than bluebirds. If a house sparrow attacks, they don’t have much of a chance unless they can flee the nest box. Not to mention, other birds like tree swallows, house wrens and bluebirds will try to evict a chickadee for the nesting spaces. If you were a little disappointed about getting chickadees, understanding their obstacles might be a bit motivating.

3.      Put up a second box for your bluebirds.

While bluebirds are territorial, it is ok to pair them with chickadees if you keep the boxes at least 50 feet from each other and don’t have the entrance holes face each other.

If you don’t quite have 50 feet, you can experiment with a closer range, but you must distance the boxes if you notice fighting and aggression. Having a large tree or a house obstructing the view between nest boxes can help when you have less space to work with.

Along with setting up a second box, you’ll want to make sure it has all the gear needed for successful nesting. One of the most important pieces of gear is a stovepipe style baffle. If you have a chance to get a nest camera installed, you might as well do that too. This will also help you monitor the second box in case house sparrows come along (house sparrows are nonnative invasive birds that routinely attack and kill native cavity nesting birds for nest spaces).

4.      Get a 1 1/8-inch hole reducer on the birdhouse.

A 1 1/8-inch hole reducer will protect your chickadees from eviction and house sparrow invasion.

Keep in mind, if you’re living in the St. Louis area or small isolated regions that have Eurasian tree sparrows ( Eurasian tree sparrows are nonnative and not federally protected. They are a nearly identical cousin of the house sparrow, but smaller), a hole reducer will not protect your chickadees.

While Eurasian tree sparrows are not quite as aggressive as a house sparrow, they will evict chickadees, harass them, compete with them and even harm nestlings of any size. We have observed this ourselves. To protect chickadees in this case, you’ll want to add a second nest box as a decoy box, and check with your state rules about whether the Eurasian sparrow is protected (they are protected in Illinois).

Another way to protect your chickadees from a Eurasian tree sparrow is to add a wren guard after eggs have been laid. The wren guard hides the view of the entry hole, and makes it harder for other birds to get in. When a bird isn’t committed to the nest, they give up a little easier.

5.      Monitor the nest

Monitoring chickadee nests is not only a way to protect them against threats, it’s just an awesome overall experience to watch the different behavior. If your birdhouse is in your yard, you may hear Mr. Chickadee start singing to Mrs. Chickadee in the morning, coaxing her from roosting in the nest and getting the day started.

You might also see Mrs. Chickadee beg for food. Or carry tufts of fur into the nest box.

Chickadee monitoring will also help you develop experience to answer other people’s questions as they discover chickadees in their birdhouses. Take extra time to watch and take care of your birds.

Be careful when monitoring your chickadees. They are not as tolerant as bluebirds, and we have heard some stories within our network of nest abandonment. Some don’t mind, some do. Go slow, tap gently on the box, and be quick. Never approach the nest in the mornings or evenings when she might be laying eggs or roosting. Never approach the nest when they are actively building. Wait until you believe they are away.

If you’re nervous about opening the box to do nest checks, you can witness a lot of behavior just by observing the box from a distance. Consider, in the future, getting a nest camera. We have a recommendation one what type to choose for nest monitoring.

6.      Protect your chickadees

You’ll want to protect them from predators. If you don’t have a good baffle system, add one to your pole as soon as you can (unless eggs are already in the box or nestlings). We recommend a stovepipe style baffle, and have some additional details about that in this article.

House wrens can also be a problem. Just as you would protect your bluebirds from house wrens, you’ll want to protect your chickadees from the same threat.

House wrens are native cavity nesters. So it is not legal to remove active nests, trap or harm them. However, a wren guard is one way of minimizing the risk of an invasion.

When adding a wren guard, we want to emphasize the importance of waiting until the first egg is laid.

House sparrows are another major worry. The most immediate way to prevent a house sparrow attack is by using a 1 1/8 inch hole reducer.

On rare occasions, we have heard reports of very skinny house sparrows getting through that. Though we cannot say for certain these weren’t being mistaken for Eurasian tree sparrows.

But to be safe, another way to protect your chickadees and other native birds from house sparrow attacks is to take down your seed feeders during the nesting season (March – August).

If you feed finches, house sparrows are less likely to eat nyjer, but we have observed this. Suet is iffy in our experience, especially because it attracts another invasive bird – the European starling. This bird also routinely kills native cavity nesting birds for their nesting spaces.

It’s actually in your birds’ favor to take seed feeders down during the whole nesting season. The primary diet of songbirds during the spring and summer months are insects, larva and other arthropods.

Click here for great information about bluebird seasonal diets – which will be similar to a chickadee’s seasonal diet as well.

Keeping feeders up during the nesting season also attracts nocturnal predators to your yard. They get a quick snack from your feeders or from the dropped seed, and with their intense sense of smell, they are sure to discover different birds nests in your yard, which is another reason to keep them down

Moving back to discouraging house sparrows, if you do have house sparrows coming to your yard, use a decoy box with a Van Ert trap.

Van Ert traps are in-box mechanisms that are easy to install and get tripped when a bird enters the house. Once tripped, the spring is unlocked, and the hole is blocked so the bird cannot exit.

Sometimes people struggle catching anything with a Van Ert trap. A few things to do would be to cover the orange circle. And if that doesn’t work, get a pellet gun (not a BB gun) do some quick target practice, and when you’re confident – well you know what to do.

By the way, if your blood is boiling a little bit after reading about sparrow trapping and dispatch, we totally understand. This is a very sensitive topic. A lot of bird landlords don’t have the heart to dispatch a sparrow – not until they’ve witnessed first-hand the tragic loss of a mother bird or her babies.

For the sake of the birds, and your own heartbreak, we hope that you might never let sparrow harassment come to that. If you haven’t experienced this loss, and want to be motivated, look up images on Google. It is heartbreaking and hard to endure. But it might help you rethink this topic.

We also made a video to help inspire and motivate. The video has sensitive images. Be advised that it is not easy to watch. We try to warn right before disturbing footage is about to come up.

7.      Enjoy the ride and learn as much as you can.

If this is your first time landlording chickadees, you get to learn quite a bit. And the more you watch and observe, the more we are certain you’ll be excited about having these little cavity nesters in your birdhouse.

Enjoy each week of monitoring. Share pictures and updates with your friends and family. Getting others enthused about these little birds and teaching them more about them will help them thrive in the long run.

Enjoy and good luck!

Important Chickadee Resources:

Looking for a chickadee nest box, consider using a bluebird box. Learn about why in this article.

Learn more about predators that may threaten nesting chickadees in this article.

Helpful Chickadee Videos

References

Brewer, R. (1961). Https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/wilson/v073n04/p0348-p0373.pdf. Retrieved April 14, 2021, from https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/wilson/v073n04/p0348-p0373.pdf

Cooper, C., & Voss, M. (2013, June 19). Avian incubation patterns reflect temporal changes in developing clutches. Retrieved April 14, 2021, from https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0065521