News & Muse from the Bluebird Trail
Please submit any comments, questions, or suggestions to birding@landisarboretum.org.
News from the Trail
Trail monitoring report
If you’d like to follow along with our Bluebird Trail Map, please click here. If the link doesn’t work, you can find the map on our website via the Discover/Maps&Guides links.
Last summer we removed the pair of boxes at WT5 to make way for some landscaping behind the Meeting House. This drops us down to 42 total nest boxes on the Bluebird Trail. All boxes were inspected and cleaned out in late August and again during March. Bluebirds were seen at the Arb all through the winter and by the time you read this they should be in the early stages of nesting. Routine monitoring of the boxes begins inearly April. Hopefully, this spring’s weather will be warmer than last year’s and the bluebirds can have a better start to the nesting season.
All nest monitoring is conducted in accordance with The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Nestwatch Nest Monitoring Manual. All monitoring data is entered into the Nestwatch database, and an end-of-year summary is also submitted to the New York State Bluebird Society.
Classes/Field Trips
There are many bird-related classes and field trips scheduled for 2026. These events started March 14 with our Setting Up A Bluebird Nest Boxclass and go through to our Annual Halloween Owl Prowl on October 30. Visit our Upcoming Events webpage to see details and to sign up. If there are other classes or field trips you’d like to see, please email us your ideas.
Bluebird Lottery
Will 2026 will be the third consecutive year that we are holding our Bluebird Lottery. It’s free to play. During the first two years of the lottery there were 30 lottery winners. Submit guesses between April 1 and May 1. Please click here for more information and to learn how to participate.
For more birding news, click here to access the entire Bluebird News and Muse blog.