By Kathleen Snyder
I am happy to report that we have a second nesting by Western Bluebirds at the Center for Natural Land Management nursery near Tenino. The first nesting produced 4 or 5 babies. This second one has 3 or 4 babies. As you can tell, it can be hard to differentiate how many individuals there are in a pile of feathers!
Our other boxes were used by Tree Swallows (5), Violet-green Swallows (1), and House Wrens (4).
We did have some disappointments though. That first heat wave we had in June when the temperatures went over 90 degrees was deadly to the nestlings that hadn’t fledged. The bluebirds and two of the Tree Swallow nests had fledged but three other Tree Swallow nests suffered multiple fatalities. We are exploring options to combat this in the future. The current bluebird nest is located among the shady oak trees so we are very hopeful that the late July heat will not be deadly.
We also had House Sparrows attempt to use one of the boxes. We do not encourage this invasive, non-native species and removed two nests. A third nest has not appeared so hopefully they have given up.
We will be cleaning out and repairing our 17 nest boxes before winter so we are ready to go again next spring. The staff at the main nursery has seen overwintering bluebirds using that acreage the past few years so we want to be ready in early spring. If possible, we hope to expand this project to other prairie properties in the next couple of years.
Photo credit: Western Bluebird nestlings on July 25th, by Kathy Prosser
