I've gone through 3 of the 4 nest box areas in the last week. Angie accompanied me on one of them which was nice; she's my bird spotter while I am distracted at the boxes. We had a couple nice sightings which I will show at the end of this little blog.
It's been an odd spring. I feel like we missed a lot of birds this year during migration. Not as many warblers, not as many of the warblers we did see, and a number of species we just didn't get that normally we do. But I guess this really has nothing to do with a nest blog but in a way it does. It felt like forever waiting for the swallows to return. Week after week, nothing, then one or two, and suddenly here we are... swallows every where!
Swallows on nests.
With eggs! Tree swallows don't make nests, they make art.
Currently I have 13 tree swallow nests and 66 eggs. There are 2 more nests in development which I hope gives me at least another 10. I still have to check Area One which should easily double what I have right now.
The breakdown is this...
The Creek - 6 nests and 32 eggs with another nest that is hopefully still being worked on.
Lambton - 1 nest with 5 eggs, and another nest being worked on at another box.
The Forgotten Land - 5 nests and 29 eggs.
I hope to get through Area One in the next few days. This is the location I hope to get help with, to train someone to help me and perhaps one day take over. It's the furthest from home location with the most boxes. The landscape is getting more and more difficult to go through as it is getting so over grown. Time will tell I suppose.
Unfortunately after one of my nest box rounds, despite really shaking myself down after getting back onto pavement, I managed to bring home an unwanted guest. A dog tick! Ewwwww! I will have to be more careful, taking extra steps like I have before, such as bringing extra clothes and changing before getting into the car. I would put my trail clothes in a plastic bag, trying it up... after shaking them all down.
Angie found this tick in the laundry room by my trail pants.
On our walk through the creek, we had a couple other cool bird sightings.
Savannah sparrow. He was singing loud and proud on one of my boxes.
Green heron! This was a new species to add to the species list for the area. It's been years for both Angie and I since we last saw a green heron. I wished I had brought my 500 mm lens after seeing this bird. I knew I had work to do so I lightened my load and put on the 250 mm lens. Darn! Oh well, hopefully we will see this bird again since we walk the creek almost weekly.
A few visits in the last while at the creek also had us see these creatures...
The resident coyote.
White-tailed deer. I just realized that I posted about them in my last blog. Ooops.
A mink.
Turkey vulture sunning in the early morning.
There are perks to monitoring nest boxes aside from helping nesting birds... you get some exercise and you see some wildlife.
I will be back soon to share my latest report on Area One.
Cheers!
