Haha, I tip toe around them when they nest at inconvenient locations. My neighbor didn’t use her front door for weeks while Robin was nesting in her front door wreath. LOL
I’m not handy so I only use purchased bird houses, though I do buy Audubon and other birding organization approved/certified ones.
In my garden, I found out Bluebirds won’t nest here, most likely because the close housing of the cookie cutter development is not open enough. I tried putting up a house on my picket fence facing the sweeping front yard, but unfortunately, that direction faces North to Northwest, which is not particularly favored by any bird. Everywhere else, there are too many trees and other structures.
Bluebird houses with the larger opening are often taken over by House Sparrows, even if a House Wren tries to claim it or even when they have started a family, house sparrows can bully them out. THEN Cowbirds come along and oust their chicks to substitute with THEIR own. I do not like them. So once I found out that Bluebirds do not seem to be interested, I screwed on entry port limiters to reduce the hole size to only allow
Chickadees and
House Wrens to enter. House Wrens are more likely than Chickadees, but at least one family of Chickadees use one of my bird house boxes every year. I have one old, unaltered bluebird house left that is inside a shrubbery next to a family room window. This one is occupied every year by
Carolina Wrens. They are too big for the reduced hole size, but I’m guessing the shady shrubbery location is not to house sparrows’ liking.
I had a
Downy Woodpecker trying out one of the other unaltered bluebird houses, but eventually House Sparrows won that box... and filled it with all kinds of trash from the neighborhood — candy wrappers, grocery bag pieces, newspaper sleeves, audio tape... sticking out of the hole. It looked so messy and I really didn’t want to see up in the tree any more... then one day the box got raided by something — all the mess had been pulled out and had been scattered on the ground. I took the opportunity to empty it completely.

After it was emptied, I think a male House Wren tried to entice a female to it but it was rejected.
More often
Robins but also
Cardinals nest in trees, shrubbery, and vines on trellises in my garden, as well as
Song Sparrows. I think
Cardinals prefer the denser shrubbery and trees. My neighbor’s hedge trimmed Juniper shrubs always host
Grackles (Grackles are not welcome at feeders but they do seem to Patrol my garden for snails and slugs, sometimes cutworm type pests while they are feeding protein to their chicks. They are messy at birdbaths as well — my neighbor throws out bread and the Grackles bring the bread to soak in my birdbaths....). Another neighbor had
House Finches nesting in her hanging basket.... which got raided by Cowbirds and all of their chicks were thrown out onto the porch floor, leaving only the giant chick in the nest and the House Finch pair-“parents” desperately feeding it. Ugh.
Mourning Doves make poor excuse for a nest on a convenient upward supporting crotch of branches or vines — they usually nest in the crown of my weeping cherry tree (this location is sometimes pre-emptied by Robin’s) or weeping blue spruce.
I have seen
Titmouse inspecting (going in and out of) the bird houses, but maybe those are just males and females have rejected? I have not seen them actually using/nesting in them.
I would love to see
Hummingbirds nesting in my garden, but so far they only visit.
Luckily, I have a small woods/copse behind my property where some wild birds that will not use birdhouses nest, and they visit my garden.