Saturday, March 14, 2020

In The Box

There are many birds that nest in cavities. Cavities are created naturally when trees loose a branch. Cavities are created on purpose by woodpeckers who drill out holes for themselves. Cavities are also created by us humans in the form of nest boxes. This week, I have photos of 2 nest boxes that I purchased and installed that actually have birds in them. First up, our resident Screech Owl. He or she went missing for a while but is back and sitting in the hole almost every afternoon.

Screech Owl
The second species is the Bluebird. We walk Peanut up at Lorimer park which butts up against Fox Chase farm. The farm is owned by Philadelphia Parks Commission and has acres of pastures and cows that are tended by the 4-H club. Someone, a long time ago, installed Bluebird boxes on the fence posts. I remember seeing Bluebirds in the park years ago but haven't seen any lately and wondered why. 

At a recent DVOC meeting, the speaker told us that Bluebirds need clean boxes to build their nest. It dawned on me that the Fox Chase Farm boxes were probably filled with old nest material so I went around and cleaned out 9 boxes and purchased 5 new ones to install where I saw long stretches without an old box.

My work paid off! Today, Connie and I saw Bluebirds at 3 of the boxes including one of the new boxes.

Eastern Bluebirds
I can't wait to see if the couples actually have babies.

3 comments:

CL(ret) said...

This is the first blog I've received from you since 9/11/18. A lot of stuff had
disappeared from my computer. The NYT just came back, too. Welcome back! Now I
will be able to catch up all the blogs I've missed. My best to you and Connie. HH

Linda said...

Awesome! I made some changes to the blog and seems to have fixed the comment and alerts

Unknown said...

Looking forward to DVOC meetings
hopefully starting up again soon. Very impressive how organized you
are!