Hanging Some Bluebird Boxes at BMB

On Sunday my parents and I met up with John Shea at Broad Meadow Brook to do some work on the trails. John and Rick hung some new boxes for the Eastern Bluebirds that live at the sanctuary. Some of the boxes were placed on free standing poles but they also used the powerline poles. [Here's a quick map that I made which shows the approximate box locations.]

While the guys did their work, Barbara and I made a couple of brush piles out of the sticks that remained from last fall's cut. Hopefully small birds and mammals will use these piles for shelter throughout the year.

After that work was done, we headed down to the brook to clean out the wood duck boxes that we hung in the winter of 2004. There are three boxes located along the brook opposite of Troiano Brookside Trail. The first ("A") is mounted on a pole in the area of the old beaver lodge. "B" and "C" are mounted on trees closer to the Dunkirk Ave end of the trail.

When we opened the boxes, we got some good news. Box "A" had both egg shells and an unhatched egg. This box was also used last year so obviously the ducks like it. Box "B" was a little harder to get to. Its mounted about 7 feet in the air so I had to "climb" the tree to reach it. If you've ever wanted to see a large guy reach blindly into a box while clinging to a tree, you missed your chance. But, it was worth it because box "B" was filled with down (but no shells). Unfortunately box "C" was filled with leaves which tells me that it was probably used as a squirrel shelter.

This is really interesting to me. Box "B" is the highest off the ground and I think that it was used. Box "A" is the lowest but its the closest to the water and its been used twice. Box "C" is the only one with a predator guard and I think that its only been used by squirrels.

As the final treat of the day, while bushwacking thru the woods from box "A" we spooked an American Woodcock. That was a first for me on the sanctuary.

The only down note for the day was that we stumbled upon a new pile of waste along the powerlines. I don't know how people get their trucks thru the gates but its a big problem. Oh well... that's something to take care of for Earth Day.

[A complete set of photos from the day can be found here.]