| BLUEBIRD BOXES INSTALLED AT OUR NEW BUILDING |
 Bluebirds are one of the most beloved species in North America. They are secondary nest builders usually nesting in the abandoned tree cavities of woodpeckers. Their beautiful colors, delightful songs, habit of consuming insects, and strong family devotion, provide happiness and inspiration to people. Bluebirds were once greatly imperiled by contamination of their insect food with DDT, the lack of nesting cavities and the competition with exotic species. This caused the population to severely drop.
However, Eastern Bluebirds have made a great comeback. This is in large part due to the thousands of people who have erected and monitored nest boxes for these magnificent birds.
The Talbot SCD recently established a Bluebird trail around the Districts new Building. The Board of Supervisors and staff would like to thank the following Partners for making this project possible: Dave Wilson, USDA RC&D Coordinator; Tom Hutson, 4-H coordinator with Cooperative Extension Service; Ned Gerber and Andi Pupke, Chesapeake Wildlife Heritage; and Tom Cohee of Barkers Landing.
In short, Dave Wilson secured a grant to pay for the materials needed for the posts and construction of the boxes. Tom Hutson rounded up the teenagers and built the boxes; Ned Gerber donated the predator guards to mount on the posts; Andi Pupke gave training and guidance to the staff to install the predator guards and monitoring the nest boxes; and Tom Cohee dug the holes for the posts and granted permission for us to extend the trail on to his property which gave us a total of 8 boxes in all.
Within two weeks we had success in two nests with eggs. Bluebird houses must be 300 ft apart because they are very territorial.
It is also necessary to control the House Sparrow (English sparrow), or it will eliminate the bluebirds. That is why monitoring is so important. House sparrows and European starlings are non-native species introduced from Europe and their aggressive seizure of cavity nest sites is the main reason for the rarity of blue birds today. House sparrows will enter blue bird boxes and frequently kill bluebirds, destroy their eggs, or drive them from their nests.
Chesapeake Wildlife Heritage has a simple devise that can be added to the bluebird box to trap the house sparrow. At no time should they be allowed to successfully nest in bluebird boxes. Doing so will only increase the house sparrow population and further reduce the number of the bluebirds.
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