Caring for your birdhouses, nest boxes, and roosts involves periodic cleaning and inspections, but exercise caution before opening a birdhouse.

Opening a Birdhouse or Roost

Before opening your birdhouse, please watch carefully. If you know a bird is on the nest, incubating eggs - do not disturb her. If you don't see or hear birds, or you just saw a bird leave the nest, knock gently on the birdhouse. Peer quickly inside. Quietly perform a quick inspection and gently close the box.

Note the most likely time for a bird to be on the nest incubating eggs is early spring.

Cleaning

For any nesting shelter, you should perform at least an annual cleanup, removing old nesting material. If you are housing birds like sparrows, you may need to clean out nesting materials more frequently than once a year.

Inspections

You'll also want to check periodically - perhaps once a month during early spring - for predators, parasitic insects, and unwanted nuisance species like house sparrows or mice. Remove the nests of the unwanted.