Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 11:00:30 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Tom Beal Subject: Nest box competition MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit One of the nest boxes in our backyard has a flying squirrel in it, as of last fall when I was cleaning them out. It didn't evict the squirrel, despite it using one of the boxes I had so cleverly designed to have an adjustable opening to convert it to a roost box, best laid plans. Yesterday I noticed a WB Nuthatch pulling the squirrel's nesting material out. He/she just wasn't dumping it out, but meticulously stashing it around the yard, stuffing it between the box and the tree or in the crotches of nearby trees. I'm not sure if it was trying to take over the box or just appropriating nesting materials. Then a male House Sparrow came flying in. Despite 30 seconds or so of threat displays by the nuthatch, the sparrow entered the box, even thought it has only 1 1/4" opening. Have not seen any activity around the box since then. Tom Beal Bowie, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================