A guestion on cleaning out a Carolina Wren birdhouse:

[skip fox]

Two Carolina Wrens built a nest in the birdhouse I set right outside my window. I loved watching them care for their young and have some friendly interaction with them almost daily.

Their batch of chicks left the birdhouse May 30 and the adults hang around it (in the bushes under my window is one dominant place) but have not revisited it. I realize their first batch was laid and hatched and left so early, they might have another.

But their original nest is still there and it was never sullied because of the way the adults remove the chicks' white packs of excrement. I wonder if I should remove it? Do they want it cleaned? Will that be like destroying their work? Would I spook them by removing their next of slender twigs &c.?

I have good relations with these birds and don't want to blow it.

(Just as I finished typing the above, one adult, the male, I think, was checking me out from atop the swing on my front porch, about ten fee from where I am sitting.

[democrank]

1. Not sure which state you live in

but here in Vermont we get a good amount of snow, so I leave my birdhouses alone in case a bird needs winter shelter. I' ve seen chickadees (and others) do that. Perhaps the Audubon website might have tips on cleaning/not cleaning.

Bird watching is so interesting, isn't it?

[TuxedoKat]

2. Most

Birding sites recommend cleaning the house after the birds use it with a solution 10:1 of water to bleach. I doubt the birds will nest again this late in the year. If you have food grade diamataceous earth, you can disperse it in the house as well to eliminate some parasites which could harm the birds. You can also spray it with a dispenser on a new nest next year before the birds lay their eggs.

[FSogol]

3. I clean out my birdhouses around the first of the year. n/t