Chris doesn't have very nice things to say about the birds and their perseverance in building nests in the fireplace vent, above speakers, and even by the BBQ after finding a tear in the BBQ cover.
Our fireplace wasn't staying lit. Even after spending time on a 16-foot ladder a couple of weeks ago to clean out the bird and wasp nests from the fireplace vent, Chris pulled the ladder out again and tried to figure out if the birds had built another nest in the fireplace vent.
This time he pulled the vent cover off and cleaned everything out, but there weren't any new nests built in the vent. He was puzzled. We had cleaned out the vent previously and then changed batteries in the fireplace remote; it was hard to know what more to do and Chris didn't want to call for service.
So, he attached the vent cover on again and, on a hunch, changed the batteries in the upstairs and downstairs fireplace remotes. We must have gotten a bad batch of batteries from Costco as they didn't last very long. Once Chris changed the batteries in the remotes again, the fireplace started working again.
This is the huge nest the birds were building under the canvas BBQ cover. Chris threw out the cover and cleared out the nest.
I watched the crackle birds coming to the BBQ on Wednesday morning looking for their nests. They acted very puzzled.