Trail Master gradually locating, upgrading nest boxes

By Steven Shumborski

We have approximately 2,585 Mountain Bluebird Trails nest boxes.We have GPS coordinates for 1,990 of them, but there are 595 nest boxes included in the inventory without coordinates. Thus we have GPS co-ordinates for two-thirds of our monitored trails, and 85 active trail monitors.

Distances: I continue to research the distance between bluebird nests to determine what is the best spacing of nest boxes for bluebirds. It seems a bit more complicated than I imagined.

There are two trails in the Cypress Hills, one in the forested area and the other on the western end of the hills in the grassland area.

The distance between nests in the forested area is largely 150 to 250 metres. The distance between nests in the grassland area is predominantly 250 to 400 m.

A monitor in the foothills has observed that the presence of fir trees increases the nesting of the mountain bluebirds in his area northwest of Pincher Creek. Perhaps this is the same effect I am seeing in the Cypress Hills.

Anyone else with observations on the nesting affected by tree types?