River Point Conservation Area
Southern Maine Nest Box Trail
22 May 2015
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Well, we are well into a new season of nest box surveys. Tree Swallows were first seen at River Point during the first week of April. It has taken several weeks for the birds to settle in to their nesting phase. On May 9th we provided the birds feathers by tossing them into the air in the open field. This activity was a shared demonstration during our celebration of International Migratory Bird Day and indicated that the birds were preparing their nests. So we scheduled our first nest box check of the season for May 13.
Wednesday, 5/13
This is our first nest box check of the season. Tree swallows and house wrens were both actively building nests, but neither had begun to lay eggs. However, one nest box contained an eastern bluebird nest with 4 eggs and a female bluebird on the nest.
Monday, 5/18
We found increased activity in our nest boxes compared to just a few days ago. In all, 18 nest boxes had at least some nesting activity (most of them empty or incomplete nests)but 6 nests contained at least 1 egg, including 4 tree swallow nests with 1 egg each, 1 house wren nest with 3 eggs, and the bluebird nest with 4 eggs (for a total of 11 eggs so far). We also had the opportunity to show a student group from Chebeague Island one of the fields with nest boxes and explain our nest box monitoring project. We set up a spotting scope so that students could observe the many tree swallows on the boxes and flying in the area.
Many thanks to River Point interns Stefanie Farrington, Erin Wright-Little, and Drew Fortin for there enthusiasm toward this project and all the work at River Point.
Biology stops for no man! Writing it all down would be impossible.
