Trail Master’s Spring Report
Renovations, transfers and paying attention
Last year was an active year for renovation with boxes in the North Burmis, Chapel Rock, Heritage Acres, Lyndon Creek, and Waterton Gas Plant areas upgraded to drop down floor style boxes with full cover roofs.
The boxes were removed, renovated and reinstalled at a spacing of 250 metres between nest boxes to respect the bluebirds’ territorial needs. The boxes were located near treed areas with pasture whenever possible.
Tyler Ray took over the trail in Lyndon Creek, removed and renovated the boxes, reinstalled them and sent me the GPS locations. Thank you Tyler.
About one-third of the 2,660 MBT nest boxes have been renovated. 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.
Transfer of trails
It is a pleasure to transfer a trail from one monitor to the next when I have all the GPS coordinates for the boxes to show the new monitor where the boxes are. I am able to prepare a package of information for the new monitor that includes: map, GPS coordinates file, Monitor Agreement, an Excel monitoring form and a sample of how the form is filled out.
When I have all this information, I can execute the transfer in half an hour. When I have no information, or the trail is abandoned, it takes weeks, months or years to find the boxes, renovate as required, then find a monitor for the trail.
When you are no longer able to look after a trail, let me know. If you have friends or neighbours who are interested, let me know so they can sign the Monitor Agreement.
If a trail is transferred to someone and I am not notified, I lose contact with that trail. Also, they are not MBT members unless they fill out the Monitor Agreement, and will not be on the email distribution list.
The trail may then be looked after for a year or two and then is abandoned. This is a too frequent occurrence and the result is the boxes fill up with nesting material and are no longer used, or the roofs come off and they are unusable.
The landowners are rightly offended to have a nest box on their fence that is not cared for, so please let me know if you no longer want or are no longer able to look after the trail.
Talking with landowners
I talked with a landowner who was very unhappy with having bluebird nest boxes on his fences. The previous monitor had passed the trail on to someone they knew, and after a couple years the landowner noticed the roofs off, the boxes full and he had to stop what he was doing to look after them.
If nobody is going to look after them, remove them, he told me.
This a reminder that putting nest boxes on fences is a privilege at the discretion of the landowner. If the boxes are not looked after we are no longer welcome in the neighbourhood.
Monitors who have a lot of nest boxes on their trail might consider sharing the bounty and altering the size of their trail so more but smaller trails can be available to other mountain bluebird supporters. Contact me if this is an option you would consider. The best method is via email at sshumborski [at] gmail [dot com].