Trail Master’s Fall Report

Thank you to everyone who looks after bluebird nest boxes.

Nest Boxes

We have about 2,623 MBT nest boxes. There are 101 monitors on record. The number of monitors is slowly increasing as the size of trails is being decreased. When someone retires, the large trails are split into trails of 25 -35 nest boxes. The trail size has been decreased to 20 or 30 to make looking after the nest boxes more of an outing than a chore.

Nest box renovation and new box installation

It has been another active year for renovation with boxes in the Beaver Mines, North Burmis, Chapel Rock Road, and Heritage Acres areas being upgraded to drop-down 4loor style boxes with full cover roofs. The spacing of the boxes was changed to locate boxes near treed areas with pasture with a 250 metre spacing between nest boxes.

So far this year 26 new boxes were installed as well as 133 renovated boxes for a total of 159 as of Oct. 8. I have another 14 renovated boxes and 18 new boxes ready to install. If you want to replace your fixed floor boxes with drop floor boxes, let me know. Over the last six years 556 MBT nest boxes have been renovated and returned to service. I have had a hand in 350 new boxes that were installed.

If you are interested in renovating nest boxes you can use the Nest Box Renovation Suggestions document on the website. Contact me if you need the metal flashing for the top of the nest box.

No trails available as of Oct. 8, 2020

If you are interested in a trail, let me know which area, and I will keep you in mind for a trail when one comes available.

The new website by Curtis attracted a lot of attention and all of the trails that were available have now been taken. Thank you Curtis for setting up the website notices that brought in new monitors.

Email is the best way to contact me sshumborski [at] gmail [dot] com

- Steven Shumborski, MBTCS Trail Master