The Sparrow Claims a House

Today this sparrow claimed our bird house for his future mate. Just outside my kitchen window, he was putting on quite the show chasing off other males and strutting his stuff to two females. By late afternoon they had all disappeared.  I'm looking forward to what tomorrow brings.

Two years ago we had a chickadee family nesting in the box. The female was sitting on her eggs when sparrows attacked and killed her and threw all her eggs out onto the porch and broke them. We were stunned! The sparrows quickly set up housekeeping and laid their own eggs in the chickadee nest. 

A Cooper's Hawk found the sparrows nest box and violently attacked it, trying to knock it off the wall. The hawk attacked it multiple times over a couple of hours and then gave up. The sparrows were able to raise their family in peace after that.

Last year the nest box went unoccupied. I think maybe the bad vibes of the year before had to dissipate before it could be used again. I'm looking forward to having a bird family to observe again.