With a resident entomologist as its owner, Windrose Stables, a boarding facility in central California, was armed against insects, but biting stable, horse, and deerflies continued to be a serious problem.

The number of manure-associated flies was also increasing. Manure flies serve as intermediate hosts for roundworms (Habronema muscae) and can transmit diseases. As Windrose is an organic farm, owners Erin Borden, PhD (entomology), and Mark Borden, MD, were unwilling to use pesticides. They tried sticky tape, attractant traps, parasitoids (insects whose larvae are parasites that eventually kill their hosts–in this case, the unwanted flies), and manure management strategies, but frequent application of citronella spray was still required to prevent hair loss and continuous irritation to the farm’s horses and mules.

In their fourth year at the farm, the Bordens erected a free-standing nesting box intended to attract bluebirds. Before the box was introduced there were no cavity nesting birds on the property, although one pair of Western Bluebirds (Sialia mexicana) had been using the tack shed as a "base of operations," and they had been seen eating insects around the pipe pens