Today marks the fourth year of putting up a birdhouse sized for chickadees that has a camera mounted inside. (Last year’s birdies.)
The house is the same as last year, but this time I left it out all year long, after cleaning it up once the last hatchling left. Back then, I added fresh wood shavings. (I put on a temporary roof without the camera for the winter.) I’m thinking the birds would be more comfortable in a ‘seasoned’ cavity. I checked a few times during the year to see if anyone set up camp, but no one did.
I’m now getting more serious about noting when things happen in the house –
| Year w/Link | House Up | Moss | Eggs | Hatch | Left |
| 2026 | 3/15 | 3/30 | 4/22 | ||
| 2025 | 3/30 | 4/17 | 4/23 | 5/9 | 5/27 |
| 2024 | 3/8 | 3/26 | 4/17 | 5/4 | 5/24 |
| 2023 | Did not do. | ||||
| 2022 | 5/2 | 6/3 | 6/21 |
For the last two years, it took about a week or two to see our first signs of nest building – moss. We see birds peeking about before that. I’ll be sure to keep this post updated.
Camera tests OK. (Index finger.)
3/16/2026 Update: By the morning of the next day we had chickadee(s) jumping into the house and even removing some wood chips. I don’t remember this happening so quickly before after putting up a house. It was perhaps due to the house being out during the winter, and birds may have been checking out the place days before I put in the camera. We’ll see when the first moss indicates someone is moving in.
3/30/2025 Update: We’d seen morning activity over the last few days with a chickadee(s?) taking the wood chips out. That activity increased until all the wood chips (about 4″) were taken out to expose the floor and that day moss was beginning to be brought in. Here we are at maybe .5″ of moss.
Looking at my table, the timing is similar to the 2024, despite this being a new house that was just put up and 206 house having been around all year.
4/3/2026 Update: Last night I checked the cam and noticed a bird was staying inside for the first time, probably sleeping. It looked like it came in around 8 p.m. The next morning, the bird seemed to wake up, fluff itself a bit, suddenly move to the side of the house, and stare down at a small, white, egg. After a moment, the bird grabbed the egg in its beak and left the house.
The egg looked like half the size of what we’ve seen in the past. It could have been something else, like a spider’s egg sack, but I’m thinking it was an egg.
4/22/2026 Update: Eggs!
I’d been pretty regularly checking the camera recordings. I was thinking the bird(s) were hiding something, but caught this from last night/this morning. Not all eggs often make it, so we’ll see. Maybe around May 10?
