Helping Bluebirds

Bluebirds are cavity nesters; they will use any cavity that fits their needs - but there are not enough cavities around for bluebirds to use. If you, too, want to help bluebirds, read on...

Enter bluebird nesting boxes! But first, a little history:

Around 1930 - in spite of the Great Depression -birding began to take hold in the USA - and eastern bluebirds became the favorite bird to watch. Roger Tory Peterson and growing numbers of the National Audubon Society began making their collective voices heard and called for something to be done to save bluebirds.

The warnings were shouted loud and clear because the U.S. had allowed the hotel food industry and land-use changes to obliterate the passenger pigeon from the face of the Earth. The eastern bluebird, counterpart of our western bluebird and mountain bluebird, was in danger - under pressure from loss of foraging habitat and nesting cavities, overuse of chemicals, outdoor cats and natural predation.

One of the most successful programs ever put into motion for bluebirds was the advent of bluebird trails.

Bluebird (nesting box) trails sprouted up from Maine to Florida, but the struggle still goes on. Right here on our own backyard there is still a great need to assist our western and mountain bluebirds. Don McCartney, a local nesting-box builder, realized this back in the '90s, and without fanfare started building and putting up nest boxes.

In the summer of 1990, when the Delicious Burn got through devastating thousands of acres of private and federal lands south of Sisters, it left behind what some people thought of as a wasteland. Don saw it differently: He knew when it started to grow green again it would be spectacular bluebird nesting habitat and he began placing nesting boxes on the snags left standing.

Sure enough, when the green-up came, so did the bluebirds.

Two years later, Don and his wife, Carol, realized they had created something wonderful for bluebirds, but also a huge burden for themselves: keeping up nesting boxes is really time-consuming. They have to be cleaned annually; holes brought back to the original size after woodpeckers enlarge them; metal flashing had to be placed on trees beneath the nesting box to stop predation by weasels and chipmunks.

Several trees blew over with boxes smashed under them, which meant poles were erected with flashing and new boxes mounted, etc., etc.

Then too, Don had hooked himself up with Cornell University's "Citizen Scientist" project and was reporting bluebird data to the university's laboratory of ornithology. He needed help. Enter the people who always save the day: Volunteers.

Volunteers like Miriam Lipitz of Tumalo, who monitored the nesting boxes for four years, and the amazing Rachel Cornsforth of Sisters, who lovingly watched over nesting boxes and faithfully reported bluebird data to Cornell for nine years.

And that is what this is all about. Your help is needed in order to continue Don's wonderful nesting box project in the Delicious Burn, and to send vital bluebird data to Cornell (the project is now under the auspices of the East Cascades Audubon Society). If you want to come on board and volunteer, call Miriam Lipitz at 541-330-0933.