Oldman Watershed Council Feature Post: There’s a Snake in my Nest Box!
As we review our website statistics and analytics for 2021, we are proud to feature articles and posts that have in-bound links to our website that we think are worthy of your attention!
The Oldman Watershed Council (OWC) is a not-for-profit organization in Southern Alberta, Canada. They are one of 11 Watershed Advisory and Planning Councils in Alberta, mandated by the provincial government to provide an independent voice for watershed management and health under the Province's Water For Life strategy.
Their website is a great source for content and information on how we can work together for our watershed’s health!
In 2021 there was a fantastic post by Jessica Tinholt, Outreach Assistant, who has a long history with maintaining nest boxes. Check out a snippet of the article below and be sure to read the full post on the OWC’s website.
There's A Snake In My Nest Box!
by Outreach Assistant, Jessica Tinholt
May 26, 2021
I remember the first time I found a snake in a nest box. Looking back, it was probably a plains garter snake with a distinct yellow stripe from tip to tail, but 12-year-old me didn’t care. I sprinted from the fence line back to the road where my grandfather was in our vehicle, clipboard in hand, waiting to write down how many eggs were in the nest. After jumping into the passenger seat, I told him what I had seen: a snake in my nest box!
Technically, the nest boxes belonged to the landowner who put them on her fence line, but Papa and I had been taking care of them for the past few years since her husband passed away. As far as I was concerned, the boxes were mine. I protected those little birds. We cleaned the boxes out in the fall, fixed them up in the spring, and monitored the birds throughout the summer. The data collected from our string of 62 boxes were passed on to the Mountain Bluebird Trails Conservation Society (MBTCS), who are dedicated to studying and conserving the mountain bluebirds. We provided them with species, egg numbers, and hatch dates to contribute to the pool of knowledge surrounding birds in our area.
It wasn’t uncommon to lose a nest. Sometimes an egg would not hatch, or the wind would blow the top of a box open and force the hatchlings out too early. We had lost nests to weather, people, and sparrows, but never a snake… (continued)
“Some of my fondest childhood memories involve warm summer evenings with my grandfather, driving down those dusty roads and counting how many bluebirds were in our boxes. There is nothing so precious as peeking inside a box to find a nest of baby birds peering back up at you, mouths wide and chirping for food. ”