Tree Swallow pair still not nesting/laying inside nestbox after 3 wks? (1 Viewer)

[mtquail]

For the second year now I'm watching and recording the tree swallow activity inside one of the bird houses in my back yard with a birdhouse camera hooked up to my laptop. However, while the tree swallows have been making appearances at the bird house every now and then for the past 3 weeks, they still haven't laid any eggs and only go inside the birdhouse for a few minutes before leaving again. Last year they were in there several hours a day starting at the beginning of May and the first egg was laid on May 16th and, according to Cornell's Birds of North America website, tree swallow eggs are most typically laid between May 5th and May 22nd so I'm wondering what might be causing things to be different this year.

I have observed that there are ants inside the birdhouse -- there were some ants in there last year as well but there appear to be more in there this time around. Could that be the reason why the birds aren't spending much time inside the birdhouse and/or why no eggs have been laid yet? I'm pretty sure the ants aren't fire ants so I'd think they would be harmless; also, according to Cornell's BNA site, "Tree Swallows do not clean out old nests, and in natural cavities simply add new nesting material. Invertebrate associates (detritus mites, predacious mites, ants, and bark beetles) interact within nest material but do not parasitize swallows." If the ants are a likely cause of why the birds aren't nesting, what should I do about it? I'm wary of using ant-killer or other pesticides in fear of killing the chicks or parents or both. And if the ants likely have nothing to do with it, what might some other causes be?

Thanks in advance for any info!

 

[DownyWP]

Ants are a big problem in a nestbox, fireants can attack and kill the chicks! Best to clean out the nestbox immediately following nesting. You may need to clean out the nestbox and start fresh?

Here is a link to a really informative website for nesting bird Landlords like us:

Sialis: http://www.sialis.org/ants.htm

I wish you the best of luck and let us know how they're doing. Ruth

 

[mtquail]

I followed the advice on that link and bought some Terro liquid ant-killer, dipped q-tips in it, and taped the q-tips to the underside of the bird house. That was about 8 days ago, and then I put several more q-tips on 4 days ago. Unfortunately it's now been a week since the tree swallows have made any appearances in, on or around the nestbox so I'm afraid they've abandoned it for good.

I've been watching the feed from inside the nestbox anyway and the ant-killer didn't seem to do anything until a day or two ago; there were ants constantly milling about inside there but in the past day or two they've been greatly reduced and now there don't seem to be any at all. I guess it takes a week or so for the ant-killer to take effect; unfortunately it seems to be too little too late in this case

 

[mtquail]

The ants appear to be entirely gone now. Still no birds, though. I know this is a long shot, but is there anything I could do to attract them back to the nest box? Like putting out some kind of food (mealworms maybe) or something else that would draw them back here?

 

[fugl]

The ants appear to be entirely gone now. Still no birds, though. I know this is a long shot, but is there anything I could do to attract them back to the nest box? Like putting out some kind of food (mealworms maybe) or something else that would draw them back here?

Putting out food is very unlikely to do any good. Birds can be very fickle in such matters & I doubt if there’s much of anything you can do at this stage to get them back.