Ranger Pete (The Birdman):
Today's monitoring was very fun and sad as we got to see lots of bird behavior including hatchlings begging for food, parents shuttling food to Box 4, and two more boxes with eggs in them. The sad part is that we only have one week of monitoring left in the school year before summer break for the students.
Our 5 Bluebird hatchlings fledged from Box 1 between our monitoring on Wednesday last week and Friday the same week. The parents and young have not been seen in the area since. Already a male House Sparrow has apparently laid claim to the empty box as he was repeatedly seen sitting on the box today. House Sparrows and Starlings are both from Europe and are considered invasive non-native species that compete with our native birds for food and nesting space.
If the House Sparrow begins to nest in Box 1, all nest materials will be consistently removed to prevent the completion of its life cycle as it is a obnoxious non-native species. This will make room for other native species to utilize box 1 if they choose to.
The Carpenter Bees in box 2 have become increasingly aggressive now coming out of the box with vigorous buzzing whenever the box is disturbed. For safety reasons, this box will no longer be monitored with the students. I will attempt to obtain images whenever possible. There are multiple bees in this box now with as many as 5 bees observed today.
Today's monitoring was very fun and sad as we got to see lots of bird behavior including hatchlings begging for food, parents shuttling food to Box 4, and two more boxes with eggs in them. The sad part is that we only have one week of monitoring left in the school year before summer break for the students.
Our 5 Bluebird hatchlings fledged from Box 1 between our monitoring on Wednesday last week and Friday the same week. The parents and young have not been seen in the area since. Already a male House Sparrow has apparently laid claim to the empty box as he was repeatedly seen sitting on the box today. House Sparrows and Starlings are both from Europe and are considered invasive non-native species that compete with our native birds for food and nesting space.
If the House Sparrow begins to nest in Box 1, all nest materials will be consistently removed to prevent the completion of its life cycle as it is a obnoxious non-native species. This will make room for other native species to utilize box 1 if they choose to.
The Carpenter Bees in box 2 have become increasingly aggressive now coming out of the box with vigorous buzzing whenever the box is disturbed. For safety reasons, this box will no longer be monitored with the students. I will attempt to obtain images whenever possible. There are multiple bees in this box now with as many as 5 bees observed today.
3 day old Tree Swallow hatchings with an unhatched egg underneath the pile. 4 of 5 eggs in this nest have hatched so far, but it does not seem likely that the 5th egg will hatch. Our first mortality along the LDMS Nest Box trail for the season.
Of note, the Tree Swallows have hatched in box 4, but only 4 of the 5 eggs hatched. If you look in the previous weekly image sets, you will notice that one of the eggs is discolored from the rest. This may or may not be significant, but for whatever reason only 4 eggs hatched in this brood (at least so far...).
The House Wren eggs in box 5 are nearing hatching soon. Perhaps next week we will get to see additional chicks during our monitoring.
The House Wren eggs in box 5 are nearing hatching soon. Perhaps next week we will get to see additional chicks during our monitoring.
| LDMS Nest Box Observations from Week Eight 6-1-15 |
Here is a visual representation of what we have observed so far along the LDMS Nest Box Trail as of June 1, 2015.
The total number of eggs, hatchlings, and fledglings observed during monitoring to date. This is one way to see how bird activity has increased over the spring from late winter to early summer in our boxes.
| LDMS Nest Box Trail Activity Summary Graph as of 6-1-15 |
