While watering recently planted Sword Ferns near the house, I noticed
a clump of fresh moss draped over the electric meter box. When I
looked closer, a small bird flew out of the clump. I did a quick
check of the nest and observed four mostly white eggs with brown
markings. The bird appears to be a nesting Pacific-slope Flycatcher,
with pale eye ring and relatively long, narrow tail that twitches
frequently when the bird is perched away from the nest. It built
its nest atop the meter box and backed up to the exposed concrete
foundation of the house, perhaps four feet above the sloping level of
the ground. This artificial nest location corresponds with the
natural locations described in Marshall et al "Birds of Oregon:"
"They nest 0-30 ft above ground, in sites back by hard supporting
surface, e.g., the crotch of a tree or shrub ..." The bird sits on
the nest inconspicuously and, with its back up against a wall, can
look out in one general direction for predators. The nesting
location is at the edge of a patch of lakefront, low elevation, moist
forest with Western Red Cedars and Douglas Firs. The nest itself has
the aforementioned moss on the outside, with a cup that appears to be
created from very fine twigs (I'll try to look more closely at the
construction after fledging).

Has anyone else had experience with flycatchers nesting nearby?

One other bird note: this year we had a Hooded Merganser female
again using one of our lakefront nest boxes, in which we had
installed a live feed video camera (last year I posted a description
of the fledging of a mixed family of Hoodies and Woodies on
Tweeters). This year the young fledged sometime in mid to late May,
but we were not here to observe it. Yesterday, however, I saw a
female adult Hooded Merganser with three 80% grown young swimming by
the Bigleaf Maple tree where they presumably hatched. Since there
are no other nest boxes on the lake, I think there is an excellent
possibility that these are the surviving members of this year's family.

Lee Rentz
Fawn Lake near Shelton, WA
lee at leerentz.com