The five bluebird trail reports are as follows:
Balm-Boyette Preserve: First Carolina chickadee nest reported!
Lake Park: 15 nests (11 BB, 3 CC, 1 CW), 38 eggs (31 BB, 7 CC). This BB trail is one of the most active I've ever seen!
Lettuce Lake Park: Sherry has an amazing story from the park today. Last week she had 2 chickadee nests with 6 eggs in one. But last week she saw a pair of bluebirds hanging around one of the boxes. Today she discovered that the bluebirds had taken over the one chickadee nest, built their nest on top and now have 2 eggs (picture attached in the weekly photos). This is the first time we've had bluebirds nesting in one of our boxes at Lettuce Lake! That is wonderful news. So the total to date at Lettuce Lake is one CC nest with 6 eggs, and one BB nest with 2 eggs!
Sargeant's Park: 1 BB nest with 5 eggs.
Flatwoods Bluebird Trail: 28 nests (20 BB, 7 CC, 1TM) with 25 eggs (13 BB, 6 CC, 6 TM). (See attached spreadsheet for details).
It was a wonderful day on the Flatwoods Bluebird Trail with nice cool weather and lots of birds! The BBs from box F6, chose to start nesting in the new box we brought in rather than nest in the old one that had the bats that finally moved out. Box F22 turned out to be a Titmouse nest, instead of a Carolina Chickadee nest, and Mom was already sitting on 6 eggs. Titmice and Carolina chickadees are cousins in the bird world and their nests and eggs are very similar and hard to sometimes determine until you see the bird fly out of the nest. We had quite a few birds checking out boxes today, and Sherry got a great picture of a bluebird emerging from box F33 after checking it out. We also had quite a show at box F37 where we watched 3 male bluebirds fighting over one female bluebird. I guess we'll find out nest week who won. Bats seem to love our boxes and we have two new boxes with bats today.
The park seems to be very alive after the big rain we finally had a week ago. In addition to all the bluebirds, we saw a Carolina wren, white-eyed vireos, cardinals, Carolina chickadees, blue-gray gnatcatchers, ground doves, palm warblers, black and turkey vultures, eastern towhees, a wild turkey, an osprey, a belted kingfisher, an immature little blue heron, a common gallinule, wood storks, red-shouldered hawks, red-bellied woodpeckers, a blue jay, American crows, Tufted titmice, tree swallows, and our first swallow-tailed kite of the season at the park! Almost hidden, lying across the lake was a very large alligator.
Thistles (Cirsium horridulum) are popping up everywhere, and Coral Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) in our native garden is in full bloom.
Mary
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