Birdhouse Eviction

I recently went to clean my Bluebird house from the nest of Wrens that produced 7 healthy fledglings.

 But it wasn’t empty.

A new tenant had taken up residence.

A small snake had made the empty Wren’s nest home.

I didn’t recognize what type of snake he was but I knew we didn’t want him in the birdhouse.

So I grabbed an arrow and knocked the nest to the ground.

The snake quickly slithered away into the nearby woods.

Later I looked him up by comparing the pictures I took to snakes native to the area. Turns out he is a juvenile Eastern Rat Snake (Scotophis Alleghaniensis).

It will mature into a large constricting snake that will be 6 feet in length or greater and be shiny black in color.  Eastern Rat Snakes are not venomous, but may bite if handled carelessly. Rat snakes are relatively slow moving and will most often freeze when first encountering danger. This is why so many are killed on our roadways. They are excellent climbers and do get quite long. I’ve caught and handled these snakes in the past and just thought of them as Black snakes. Learn something new every day… 

Bluebirds 2011 #5

Success! One day before Spring and we have some prospective new tenants. About eight o’clock this morning on our way to breakfast I saw this Bluebird couple checking out one of our new Bluebird houses. This particular one was given to us by our neighbors Nancy and Judy next door. It came in a kit form and Candy did an excellent job putting it together. Altogether we have four houses up.One we built from scratch and Candy nicely decorated with some flowers, windows and a little fence, one my Mom gave us already built, the one pictured above and the old original one we put out as a decoy house to hopefully attract any nesting sparrows nearby.

Mr. Blue staking his claim.

Mrs. Blue checking out the new digs.

Prospective tenants.

Initial home inspections are important.

Mr. Blue seems satisfied. We’ll keep our fingers crossed and hopefully this will be chosen as their new home.