Nesting

I was just sitting down to a quiet lunch and heard a funny sound.  It was sort of a scratching, crunching... hard to identify sound. But clearly not natural. I though maybe we had mice gnawing on something in the living room. I moved out through the house slowly, stopping every few feet to make sure I was still hearing the sound and figure out what direction to go in.

I got through the living room and realized the sound was coming from outside, but close, maybe on the front porch.  I looked out the window, saw nothing.  I went to the door. The sound was loudest there.  I peeked out the door and saw:

I opened the door and scared him off so I could take a look at the damage:

This old door used to have some sort of extra lock which we took out some years back. Jeremy filled the hole in with some foam stuff. It has stood the test of time...until now.  I went to get some tape and the bird came back and kept digging!  He'd be pretty surprised once he broke through the foam to find not just a nice nesting spot, but a whole house at his disposal. Just what we need.  I shooed him off again and taped over the hole. I suspect he can get in through tape too so we'll have to keep an eye on this.  I have been wanting to put up some bird houses - maybe now is the time!  And it also adds a bit more urgency to getting our new doors installed.

Yes, we have brand new, beautiful doors all painted and ready to install (you can tell by the photo that we obviously are way past due for an upgrade!).   Jeremy doesn't have the time because of mushroom stuff so we're getting a local contractor/builder to do it.  They have to squeeze us in so they'll be giving us a couple days notice and then the doors can go in. We haven't heard anything yet, but I hope we can get them installed before the birds get through and move in!