This past July I returned to North Dakota for a family reunion and to check on the house to see if we had any activity in the bird houses. I’m happy to report that our first tenants are an Eastern Kingbird pair and they set up house and home in the letter H of the word HERE. Eastern Kingbirds are very territorial and will attack much larger birds in order to defend their nest. This most likely means that the remainder of the homes will stay vacant as long as the Kingbirds are here! I saw no woodpecker activity in the letter “I”, which my father had earlier reported, and am assuming the Kingfishers had something to do with that.
Also on an interesting note – the kingbird moved into a home designed for barn swallows. It has an open front with a flat bottom and pitched roof where the swallows will build their nest. However, I noticed that i nailed this particular one on upside down and the Kingbird must have liked how the upside down roof made a nice little hollow for it’s nest. However the flat bottom is short and doesn’t provide much shade coverage in the hot ND summer sun. Let’s hope the little ones made it.
