Fri 23 Apr 2010
Bluebird Nesting is in Full Swing
Posted by Nicole under Surveys and Counts
1 Comment
Back in late March and early April, our Bluebird monitors started lining up their teams, setting their monitoring schedules for the season and getting ready for nesting! We made our first trips out to the nestbox trails, which are in various places across Loudoun – Claude Moore Park, Temple Hall Farm, Algonkian Park, Rust Nature Sanctuary, and others, as well as private trails maintained by homeowners.
During the first few weekends, we started seeing some early signs, like a pair of Bluebirds courting or sticking their heads in and out of the boxes, and heard the males singing. Then, we started seeing the nesting activity, with beautiful soft grass nests carefully formed for insulation and comfort.
By April 18th, we had nests and eggs along many of the trails. I monitored at both Banshee Reeks and the Dulles Wetlands trails on the 18th and the trails were very active with not only Bluebirds and full clutches of eggs but also Tree Swallows claiming boxes, pairing up and starting their courtship displays.
The Bluebirds will continue to pair up and get their nesting going and then they’ll have as many as three broods over the course of the season. So far, we’re off to a great start!
An amazing sight – in the Fall of the early 70′s- the last century!- I went out of our back door, heard a swoosh noise as up from our black walnut tree flew a large cloud of blue. Up,up, and then away it swooped, dipping across the field beyond the tree. I counted at least 40 bluebirds as I stood there not believing what I was seeing; and no one to see it with me!
Several years before that we had put up a Purple Martin house near our vegetable garden and immediately bluebirds moved in – height and all. We stayed up late making 3 bluebird houses which we put around the farm. The bluebirds raised their first clutch in the Martin House and then moved into a bluebird house.
We were lucky and had a lot of clutches each year; and probably more on the back of the farm in natural nests.
They had the usual battles with English Sparrows. Once the 2 opposing males had a great “cock” fight while the female
bluebird jumped up and down on the fence rail cheering her mate on.
Another time when a Bluebird and an English Sparrow had a fight inside a box it shook so we thought it would come off of the fence post. Then a bedraggled sparrow
came out and was never seen again. The Blue Birds went right to work and built there nest – we could almost hear them saying, “well, that takes care of that.”
We never had Purple Martins – the English Sparrows took it over.