Silly Birds!

We have 3 birdhouses set up in our backyard with no takers for occupancy. Two are made for Wrens (haven't seen any yet) and the other one is for any bird to take advantage of...even a HOSP or House Finch...and there are plenty of both of mated prs looking for places to build their nests...even in the top corner of our porch and in our garage which we had to discourage both...sad to say. These birds fly by the birdhouse that they can use but they don't even chech it out! I made it myself too. I had the birdhouse with the opening facing east for about a month. I just moved it to now the opening is facing west...and still no takers after 2 weeks. It is 6' high too and in our honeysuckle garden. Does anyone have a clue as to why no bird wants to nest in our birdhouse?
TIA :)

Hi SusanLouise, How long have the bird houses been up?

The reason I ask is because a lot of birds will make their decision of where to nest by January. The nest box my Chickadee's are in right now has been up since last Spring.

Hello Pelletory,

One of the Wren houses was up since last fall. the other was put out in February. The one I made was out since the 2nd week of March. Currently we have 5 mated prs of House Finches and 3 mated prs of HOSP...several are in the process of building their nests. I see them take the materials I've left out for them and they collect leaves from plants...especially the soft leaves of our yarrow!
I hope it will at least be occupied when one of those prs have their 2nd brood. It's just disheartening when I waited all winter to finally have a nesting pr of birds in our yard. We usually have about 6-8 mated prs of Goldfinches that nest within the distance of a block in any direction. Too bad they don't use birdhouses...LOL
I do enjoy watching the females take the fluff from the balls I leave out starting mid-July :)

Very cute shot Susan!! The only other thing I could think of would be the locations and distances between nest boxes, considering the size of your lot. Here are info for different birds from Sialis.

http://www.sialis.org/habitat.htm

Thanks for the link Pelletory...unfortunately it didn't have anything for House Finches. I didn't care about what they said about not allowing HOSP nesting...shame on them. It's my choice if I want them to nest or not. I don't care what bird nest in the house i made...I just want it occupied! LOL
Well, I went to drastic measures! I'm posting 2 pics...a before and after...HA! I decided to attach some nesting material right to the roof of the house...for a hint*...hopefully some bird will take advantage of the situation :D
Here's the "before" pic...

Here's the "after" (now it looks like a hut)...LOL

That last pic is so funny!!!LMOL

Hello mcash70,

Glad I can amuse you :D
My next step is neon signs :/
I'll have to update on the progress...

You GO SUSANLOUISE ^_^ LUV the big hint with the nesting materials! I've made a note of that for the future.

Hello Dahlianut,

Ha! :)
I just hope they don't expect me to build the nest for them too :/

I sometimes have to 'help' the robins with design suggestions like gently removing ratty ole plastic pieces that hanging down over the back stoop light and leaving silver artemesia foliage on the ground and tinsel so they can add that instead. I got the tinsel idea from them as one year we were way late taking our Christmas tree for recycling and they took all the bits of tinsel of it. Very pretty nest. O and mudpies. I keep a spot of mud for them. One dry spring I'm sure there were a dozen robins using that spot of mud.