News & Muse: The Bird Blog's First Flight

The Lan­dis Arbore­tum Blue­bird Trail fea­tures 40 nest­ing box­es locat­ed through­out our grounds. This is the inau­gur­al post of News & Muse from the Blue­bird Trail. Each post will con­sist of the fol­low­ing sections:

News from the Trail – what is hap­pen­ing on our trail. 

Fea­tured Bird – infor­ma­tion about one bird species that you may encounter on the trail. 

Muse for the Trail – an artis­tic or inspi­ra­tional item that is relat­ed to the trail or to bird­ing in general. 

Ran­dom Facts and Help­ful Hints – use­ful infor­ma­tion that is gen­er­al in nature. 

Quar­ter­ly Bog­gler – a rid­dle, puz­zle, or triv­ia ques­tion to solve. 

Nest­box Spot­light – a pho­to and/​or infor­ma­tion about our nestboxes. 

The infor­ma­tion we pro­vide is intend­ed to spark your inter­est with­out being over­ly schol­ar­ly or exhaus­tive. We will some­times sug­gest where to find addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion for those of you that would like to learn more. Some issues will be long and oth­ers short. We hope you will enjoy them all. Please sub­mit any com­ments, ques­tions or sug­ges­tions to birding@​landisarboretum.​org.

News from the Trail 

Let me intro­duce myself: I’m Shayne Mitchell, and I began vol­un­teer­ing at Lan­dis in Novem­ber 2023. My assign­ment has been to come in on Tues­days to take care of the Blue­bird Trail. When I start­ed, many of the nest box­es along the trail need­ed repair. I met with Fred Breglia, who explained the over­all reha­bil­i­ta­tion plan and gave me some guid­ance on how to begin. I con­tin­ue to meet with Fred from time-to-time. 

Ini­tial­ly, I focused on assess­ing and record­ing the con­di­tion of the trail. Dur­ing Novem­ber, each nest box was vis­it­ed, pho­tographed, and cleaned out, and its loca­tion, struc­tur­al con­di­tion, and oth­er attrib­ut­es were entered into a spread­sheet. Required repairs were iden­ti­fied and the nec­es­sary mate­ri­als scrounged – scrap wood from behind the Meet­ing House and unused hard­ware from the barn. For­tu­nate­ly, the ground hadn’t frozen yet, so I was also able to straight­en and rein­stall posts dur­ing this time rather than hav­ing to wait for the spring thaw. 

By the end of Decem­ber, I had cut down encroach­ing brush and took down the nest box­es that need­ed repair and brought them to the green­house. Nest box repairs were begun and con­tin­ued into ear­ly Feb­ru­ary. The most com­mon prob­lem I encoun­tered was leak­ing roofs. Instal­la­tion of repaired nest box­es is near­ly com­plete as I write this. I plan to put up the last two on the final Tues­day in Feb­ru­ary, in time for nest­ing season. 

I am hap­py to report that weath­er con­di­tions did not inter­fere with the reha­bil­i­ta­tion project. I nev­er had to skip a week of work because of extreme cold or snow that was too deep. That’s not to say that we didn’t have any cold weath­er. For­tu­nate­ly, the green­house pro­vid­ed a refuge from the cold as it hov­ers around 50° inside when it’s cloudy and is warmer when sun­ny. So, I had a rel­a­tive­ly warm space to take tem­po­rary breaks from the trail on the cold­er days and for mak­ing repairs.

On a philo­soph­i­cal note, I’ve observed that win­ter is a qui­et time of year at Lan­dis, both out on the trail and in the green­house. My Tues­days have been peace­ful, even med­i­ta­tive. Much as I have loved the com­par­a­tive soli­tude, I am look­ing for­ward to a tran­si­tion to spring­time, warmer days, and see­ing more peo­ple. Also, it will be great to see plant activ­i­ties ramp up in the green­house, even if it means that I lose most of my ​“office space”. 

Trail reha­bil­i­ta­tion by the numbers: 

40 nest box­es inspect­ed and cleaned.

30+ nest box posts straightened. 

20 nest box roofs replaced or repaired.

18 weeks spent on project (one day per week).

15 mice evict­ed dur­ing box cleanouts.

Many miles of hik­ing back-and-forth between green­house and nest boxes.

By March the reha­bil­i­ta­tion project will be com­plete, just in time to begin trail mon­i­tor­ing. Look for my first report on trail mon­i­tor­ing in the next issue. 

“Didn’t pay the rent … so out the door they went.” Nest box FLT5E, Novem­ber 2023.

Fea­tured Bird

East­ern Blue­bird – I think it is safe to say that the East­ern Blue­bird is the favorite bird at Lan­dis. Cer­tain­ly, they have to be count­ed among the most well-loved species of birds in the world. While there are many rea­sons for their pop­u­lar­i­ty, the great­est fac­tor is arguably their beau­ti­ful col­or­ing. They typ­i­cal­ly live in open coun­try around scat­tered trees and where there is lim­it­ed under­sto­ry and sparse ground cov­er. They pre­fer to nest in cav­i­ties such as holes in trees and in human-made nest box­es. These birds main­ly eat insects and fruit. Lan­dis has an abun­dance of habi­tat, foods, and nest cav­i­ties that East­ern Blue­birds favor and that’s why they are com­mon­ly seen on our prop­er­ty. You can learn much more about East­ern Blue­birds by vis­it­ing https://​www​.allabout​birds​.org/….

Muse for the Trail

Muse (noun) the spir­it that is thought to inspire a poet or artist; a source of genius or inspiration.

(verb) to think about some­thing care­ful­ly and for a long time.

The Last Word of a Bluebird

By Robert Frost

As I went out a Crow

In a low voice said, ​“Oh,

I was look­ing for you.

How do you do?

I just came to tell you

To tell Les­ley (will you?)

That her lit­tle Bluebird

Want­ed me to bring word

That the north wind last night

That made the stars bright

And made ice on the trough

Almost made him cough

His tail feath­ers off.

He just had to fly!

But he sent her Good-by,

And said to be good,

And wear her red hood,

And look for skunk tracks

In the snow

with an ax—

And do everything!

And per­haps in the spring

He would come back and sing.”

Note — Some of our blue­birds stayed through the win­ter. For any that didn’t, spring is near­ly here, and we look for­ward to their return.

Ran­dom Facts and Help­ful Hints 

If you would like a free, well-regard­ed App to help you iden­ti­fy birds that you see or hear, try Mer­lin Bird ID. Vis­it https://merlin.allaboutbirds.o… for more information.

Quar­ter­ly Boggler

Bog­gler (noun) some­thing, as an amaz­ing fact, puz­zle, or rid­dle, that astounds or defeats.

Which state has des­ig­nat­ed the East­ern Blue­bird as its state bird? (see answer at bot­tom of page) 

Nest­box Spotlight 

“Before and after” pic­tures of a pair of nest box­es (PT2W and PT2E) along the Pio­neer Trail. Before reha­bil­i­ta­tion above, Novem­ber 2023. After reha­bil­i­ta­tion below, Feb­ru­ary 2024. Brush was cut, one post straight­ened, box ven­ti­la­tion improved, one roof replaced, and the oth­er roof was shin­gled which will buy some time before it must be replaced.

Bog­gler Answer 

Both Mis­souri and New York have des­ig­nat­ed the East­ern Blue­bird as their state bird.