Jon. Anderson wrote:
>I received the Autumn 1996 issue (Vol 67 No 4) of the Journal of Field
>Ornithology, published quarterly by the Association of Field Ornithologists.
>Here's the contents, for those interested.
>
>(snip, snip...)
>Does Removal of Old Nests from Nestboxes by Researchers Affect Mite
>Populations in Subsequent Nests of House Wrens? Andrew J Pacejka and Charles
>F Thompson. pp 558-564. House Wrens prefer nestboxes that contain old nests
>to those where old nests have been removed, but remove (at least partially)
>the old nests themselves; Levels of mites are the same when researchers
>remove old nests and when they don't; inclusion of old nests in boxes may
>enhance the attractiveness of artificial nest sites.
(snip, snip...)

I have long assumed that it was important to clean out my chickadee and
swallow nestboxes once a year. Does this mean that I should stop? Or
is that reading too much into these findings, applying them too broadly?
Perhaps their study was conducted in a much colder climate, where all
the mites were killed off in the winter. Are mites the impetus for
cleaning out nestboxes? Or is it something else? Thoughts???

Mike Seamans
Seattle, WA
>a-mikese at microsoft.com
>