Today, Jeewa, Claudia and I cleaned out all 34 nest boxes at the FWG. It was great to have help this time around, and someone to hold the ladder! We found some interesting things, such as three nest boxes with lovely mossy chickadee nests, a number of nests with mice in them, some with red squirrel nests, some with polistes wasp nests affixed to the inside roof of the box, quite a few unused boxes, and not a whole lot of swallow nests. But more on that in a report I'll try to put together soon for the FWG website.

This was one of several mice we saw in various nest boxes. In some cases, they had built their winter quarters on top of swallow or red squirrel nests. In two cases they had burrowed under the chickadee nests and pushed them up to form a mossy dome, then stuffed the interior with seed fluff, thistle, milkweed, DSV, etc.