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Bluebird Saturation?From: "Gary Springer" springer"at"alltel.net Keith Kridler once wrote that when he was a child, his mother told him that he had to double the number of nest boxes he put up each year to accommodate the young that had been raised from his nest boxes the previous year. Fortunately for us as well as the bluebirds, Keith followed her advice. And, I'm beginning to experience first hand the wisdom of her advice. I don't have much bluebird breeding type habitat on my property. Just a stretch of mowed grass about 125 yards long and between 10 and 20 yards wide, plus an 800 yard long driveway cut through mature forest. The first time I had two active bluebird nests on the property at the same time, I was very surprised. The following year, when there were three active nests at the same time, I was amazed. But, now there are 5 active bluebird nests and three are within 120 yards of my house. They have managed to place their nests no closer than about 70 yards apart. It appears quite obvious that these bluebirds don't have nearly enough typical open insect hunting ground. And because I have never provided even a single meal worm, they must be utilizing other nearby fields, the forest, or both. I have seen bluebirds bring small salamanders to the nest box so they do occasionally find fare for their nestlings in a forest environment. The number of simultaneous nests on the property remained constant at one for 4 seasons during the period the bluebird habitat here was at least 50 percent larger than it is now. Since then the surrounding forest has encroached and much of the wild grasses were replaced by immature second growth trees and thick brambles. You can draw your own conclusions but it was during the fifth year that I replaced the wooden nest box mounting posts with greased metal poles. The sixth year saw three simultaneous nests for the first time. The sixth year was also the same year I raised the nest box height to 8 feet, and, now the seventh year, there are simultaneously five active bluebird nests, even though the bluebird breeding habitat has grown significantly smaller. Gary Springer Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 13:15:09 EDT In a Message dated 4/18/01 12:44:41 PM Eastern Daylight Time, springer"at"alltel.net writes: The sixth year was also the same year I raised the nest box height to 8 Gary, I can clearly remember a time when having one breeding pair in my
neighborhood was a huge thing. Now we are blessed each year with the return of
our Thank you for sharing! Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2001 10:24:45 -0400 Hello all, Is this Bluebird saturation? There are 5 nesting Eastern Bluebird pairs within 160 yards of my house and three are within 200 feet of the house. Two have approximately 14 day old chicks and three have eggs. If you divide up the total available grassed area by the 5 pairs, each pair gets an area about 30 feet by 60 feet. The grassed area around one box is only a 6 foot wide, 125 foot long trail and it is squeezed against the forest by the pair that is within 100 feet of it on the other end of the trail that opens up into my narrow drive way. Another pair is nesting in a box mounted near the center of a small clearing with a radius of less than 50 feet. This pair has to travel at least 150 yards to get to a decent hunting area and when it gets there it will have heavy competition. Their nest is composed of deciduous leaf veins with some pine needles and a bit of grass. I don't know if the cooler weather, the availability of insects, the damp grass that needs mowed, or the competition for feeding area has anything to do with it, but they are acting more like Eastern Phoebes than Eastern Bluebirds, right on down to the loud snapping of the bill when they catch insects. The only difference is that they aren't wagging their tails. I watched for an hour right after daylight during heavy feeding and I didn't see one bluebird go to the ground for an insect. Carolina wrens in a box about 12 feet from the house are about to fledge and a cardinal has three small chicks in the low hanging branches of a cedar tree a couple feet from my deck rail. I sat in one spot 35 feet from the house and was able to watch two bluebird
pairs, the Carolina Wren and the Cardinals feeding their young at the nests. How can it get any better? By the way, There is a beautiful NABS style box mounted almost 6 foot high and facing east near the middle of the largest open area of the property. It's been there three years and not a single bird has nested in it, although it is by far the most often used box for winter roosting. Tufted titmouse did roost in it almost continuously throughout the last two winters. Since that NABS box has been there, three Chalets within 100 feet of that box and in the same clearing have had 6 successful nestings of Eastern Bluebirds and 4 of Chickadees with no eggs or chicks lost other than unfertilized eggs. One of these Chalets mounted a year after the NABS is also slightly less than 6 feet high and it has not been used since the other two Chalets were mounted about 8 feet high a year and a half after the NABS box was installed. Go figure. Gary Springer, Writing from the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Northeast Georgia, further north than most of South Carolina and a bit of North Carolina. Most extensive source of Bluebird information http://audubon-omaha.org/bbbox/bestofbbml/bblindx.htm Real Bird Homes www.realbirdhomes.com
From: "Bruce Burdett" blueburd"at"srnet.com To: The Constituency, Is this true? Are Bluebirds now so common there that they don't need our special help any more? Up here in NH, that's far from being the case. We're still a relatively Bluebird-poor state. Many, many people have never seen one in their lives. Bruce Burdett, SW NH Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 19:43:26 -0400 I spent 35 years in various Baltimore County suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland, grew up in an outdoors oriented family and have been "bird-aware". I had never seen a Bluebird until moving to recently developed farmland in Harford County 4 years ago. They nest in my backyard now and I see them fairly frequently locally, but I wouldn't say they are common. Pam in Harford County, Maryland -----Original Message----- ... From: "Heather McCall" HeatherMcCall13"at"hotmail.com I spent over 4 decades living in various parts of rural southern NJ, grew up on a farm, and never saw a bluebird until I moved to MD. One winter we kept seeing a flock of EABL in our backyard, and started reading up on them. Our land is also recently developed farmland (about 8-9 years ago), and our property borders a very small wooded strip which includes quite a bit of poison ivy, a large old mulberry tree, and several large old wild cherry trees. Our initial EABL visitors appeared to be interested in grubs of some sort. Other than various perches around our neighborhood I have never ever seen bluebirds anywhere else. I have observed that our neighbors don't have any idea what kinds of birds are in their yards until we point them out; this is true even of such hard-to-miss individuals as male goldfinches and cardinals! From my own experience I suspect most people don't notice most of the birds in their neighborhoods unless they put feeders near windows. Heather McCall From: Kelley Family [mailto:herbsho"at"epcwc.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2004 1:04 PM Subject: Could it be? Our development has been monitoring 40 EABL houses for the last eight years. I am in the process of building twelve more for next year. They will be placed in a newly developed area. Neighbors comment that when they moved here they saw EABL but not in abundance. Now they report seeing them everywhere. Our success has encouraged others to place EABL boxes in their yards. It has become the thing to do. In the past, we have had aggressive EABL nesting behavior with three fledges not uncommon. This year we had a big bang start but now the birds seem to have lost interest in building nests. Is it possible that we have saturated the area with EABL? Is this Mother Natures way of slowing things down? Some property owners in the new area have reported that they are observing EABL nesting a day or two after they put up boxes. At least one of these is in the woods near a small pond. No open spaces, no fields. What are your thoughts/experiences.? Are we just having a bad year in the established area with no explanation? Been unseasonably warm with above average rainfall (+5") Our 40 boxes including some of the neighbors have yielded 100+ fledglings so far this year. So I am not complaining, just trying to understand and identify cycles if they exist. Maybe we just need to add more areas Thanks Herb Kelley East Central Missouri |
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