2012 Spring Update
Another breeding season is upon us and off to an early
start. My eager bluebirds in my back yard laid their first
egg on Sat. March 10th while I was in Richmond attending
the Virginia Bluebird Society board meeting. How
fitting!!!! Let me hear from you on your first egg data for
each species. I will be keeping up with it to turn into the
state.
We had 43 attend our monitor workshop at Raywood
March 3rd. I have an awesome group of monitors this
year and reports are coming in daily of new nest and
eggs! I have had two reports of Brown-headed
Nuthatches (BHNH) in area bluebird boxes. We are
changing out the hole-plate when we find the BHNH to
an 11/4” hole to keep the larger bluebird from interfering
with their nesting attempt. We have these in stock at
Raywood Landscape. The BHNH numbers have been
very low in recent years. As we monitor our boxes and
find these little birds we can help them out by protecting
their nest and eggs to assure them of success. The BHNH
only nests once; therefore as soon as their babies fledge
you can change the hole-plate back to bluebird size and
put out the welcome mat for our beautiful blues.
Make sure you keep a weekly check on your boxes, to
stay ahead of any problems. I cleaned out multiple
spiders, web sacks and wasp nests today as I did my
weekly check. I also found lots of nest and new eggs! I
placed a couple of bay leaves in the bottom of each box
under the nest cup to ward off ants. I tried this last year
and it really did seem to work. Keep accurate records
and send in your reports after breeding season ends!
Using the weekly monitor sheet on the resource page will
make your end of year report a breeze!
Please don’t hesitate to contact me with your bluebird
questions or problems.
vickiefuquay@comcast.net
May all your blues be birds!
Another breeding season is upon us and off to an early
start. My eager bluebirds in my back yard laid their first
egg on Sat. March 10th while I was in Richmond attending
the Virginia Bluebird Society board meeting. How
fitting!!!! Let me hear from you on your first egg data for
each species. I will be keeping up with it to turn into the
state.
We had 43 attend our monitor workshop at Raywood
March 3rd. I have an awesome group of monitors this
year and reports are coming in daily of new nest and
eggs! I have had two reports of Brown-headed
Nuthatches (BHNH) in area bluebird boxes. We are
changing out the hole-plate when we find the BHNH to
an 11/4” hole to keep the larger bluebird from interfering
with their nesting attempt. We have these in stock at
Raywood Landscape. The BHNH numbers have been
very low in recent years. As we monitor our boxes and
find these little birds we can help them out by protecting
their nest and eggs to assure them of success. The BHNH
only nests once; therefore as soon as their babies fledge
you can change the hole-plate back to bluebird size and
put out the welcome mat for our beautiful blues.
Make sure you keep a weekly check on your boxes, to
stay ahead of any problems. I cleaned out multiple
spiders, web sacks and wasp nests today as I did my
weekly check. I also found lots of nest and new eggs! I
placed a couple of bay leaves in the bottom of each box
under the nest cup to ward off ants. I tried this last year
and it really did seem to work. Keep accurate records
and send in your reports after breeding season ends!
Using the weekly monitor sheet on the resource page will
make your end of year report a breeze!
Please don’t hesitate to contact me with your bluebird
questions or problems.
vickiefuquay@comcast.net
May all your blues be birds!
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Virginia Bluebird Connection
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Photo by Lexi Meadows
Photo by David Hoffmann
| First nest in Vickie's back yard. . . They should hatch March 27th! |
