Last night while walking up the front walkway to a friend's home in Bentleyville (a far-southern suburb in Cuyahoga County), Karin Tanquist and I noted a bird dart out of a small bush that was growing tight against the house and right along the walkway. It had white outer tail feathers. When it perched on the garage roof we saw it was a Dark-eyed Junco. We looked for a nest under the bush and then in the bush, but came up empty. 

Our friends came out of the house to greet us and as we talked to them about the significance of this species being there on this date and perhaps nesting there, we were directed to a flower box on the house from whence the incubating female Dark-eyed Junco flew out on our approach. We found a perfectly constructed nest on the soil of the box snuggled in amongst the stalks of the window-box flowers. It contained four eggs. 

The flower box was 3-4 feet off the ground. Although this species apparently most often nests in woodlands or woodland edges on the ground in a shallow depression, the Birder's Handbook reports that it usually does so at a site with "overhead protection, often against vertical surface; rarely in shrub, tree or building." Here we had the overhead protection from the building's soffit overhang as well as the vertical surface with the house wall. This area of Bentleyville is also very well-wooded. 

When we asked our friends (who are not bird watchers) if birds had used this window box in previous years, they said no but pointed out that "small birds" had used their hanging flower pots on the front porch in previous years. We presumed these were likely House Finches but it also seems to me that there have been reports on Ohio Birds from NE Ohio in recent years of Dark-eyed Juncos nesting in hanging flower pots and even in garages. In any event, this nest was delightful find on a lovely evening. 

-Patrick Coy
Peninsula, OH

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