President's Report - Fall 2019
Well, another season has come and gone with a new crop of young Mountain bluebird fledglings heading south for the winter. In spite of a late and coolish start to the season, it would appear at this stage that this was a pretty typical year for bluebird nestlings and subsequent fledglings.
The weather cooperated a little better than in recent years during that critical nesting period in May and June.
The bluebirds may have done all right this year but tree swallows, as the primary competitors for nest boxes, didn't fare as well. Steven Shumborski, our Trail Master, reported a mysterious heightened increase in dead tree swallow fledglings. This appeared to be fairly widespread so Steven contacted Fish and Wildlife officials and was told it was due to the cool July nesting season as well as a scarcity of live insects with many young starving to death.
Another interesting issue we experienced this year was the potential presence of a tick that uses bluebirds as their host. The tick carries diseases that can infect swine, which is obviously a big threat to local pig farmers if it is found in southern Alberta.
At this stage Steven is working with Dr. Joel Hutcheson from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and asking monitors to collect nest material samples so the CFIA can evaluate for the presence of the tick. We hope to get more information, as Joel will be our speaker at our annual general meeting Oct 26.
We currently have a limited supply of bluebird boxes and therefore are at the stage again of making requests for grant funding so we can gain the supplies to build additional boxes. Please touch bases with Ken Mackintosh at the AGM if you are in need of some boxes.
Our Trail Master, Steven, has done a wonderful job again repairing, moving and renovating existing boxes with drop-down bottoms, on a number of old abandoned trails this past season, as well as attracting new monitors. Thank you, Steven, for all your efforts.
If you know of someone who is interested in a trail as a monitor, please contact Steven because there are trails available.
A major project we tackled this year was the upgrade of our website. Our Webmaster, Jan Warren, took the lead and along with Steven and two Lethbridge College students we contracted, they worked on enhancing the website to meet our needs as monitors and as well for the interested general public. The project is nearing completion.
Once again I hosted the annual Trail Orientation Day June 1 on my trail on the west side of Lethbridge. We had six keen participants who got a chance to see an active trail in operation and what is expected if you become a monitor.
All monitors and interested public will be gathering for our annual general meeting Oct 26 at the Helen Schuler Nature Centre from 1 to 4 p.m. We are extending the meeting this year to allow for more visiting and sharing of our bluebird experiences.
Our guest speaker, as mentioned, will be Dr. Joel Hutcheson, head of the Centre for Animal Disease from the CFIA here in Lethbridge. He will be discussing the tick situation in relation to bluebirds. Please join us on Oct 26..