Top Photo: Male, eastern bluebird.

The season kicked off with a complete bluebird nest on March 7 in the nest box on the east side of the parking deck (PKE). There were four eggs in the nest on March 14 and five by the 21st of the month. These early birds fledged on 11 April. By then, there were 3 chickadee nests elsewhere on our six nest box trail with 10 eggs and five nestlings.

We lost one of the nests due to an intruder opening the nest box (and leaving it open) on a particularly cold night. There had been 6 just-hatched nestlings in the nest.

The totals for the season was 17 birds, 8 eastern bluebirds and 9 chickadees.

The first birds to fledge were on April 11 when 5 eastern bluebirds left the nest box on the east side of the parking deck.

The final nest to empty out was a nest with 3 bluebirds on July 11 from the nest box on the west side of the parking deck.

Over the years since 2012 there is a total of 330 birds fledged with an average of about 23.6 birds per season.

Eastern birds have totaled 203 fledged birds with an average of 14.5 per season.

Carolina chickadees totaled 90 fledged with an average of 6.5 per season.

House wrens totaled 37 birds averaging 2.6 per season.

(There were no data for 2020 due to the pandemic)

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This update should have been posted in mid July. Technical difficulties prevented that from occurring. Thank you for your patience.

Ranger Greg