In 1934 a song called “The Bluebird of Happiness” with lyrics by Edward Heyman hit the airways to popular acclaim.
Today, a Chester County woman, Marilyn Michalski of Phoenixville, can lay claim to many such bluebirds as she helps preserve our area’s bluebird population by monitoring their nesting activities along with those of purple martins, tree swallows, and other cavity nesters.
Michalski, a retired English teacher from Lower Merion’s Harriton High School, is no casual birder. She is a Pennsylvania Bird Monitor with BSP – the Bluebird Society of PA – along with being a board member and the state coordinator. Of the five bluebird trails she monitors, the largest one is at Camphill Village in Phoenixville which supports over 50 nest boxes for native cavity-nesters (like eastern bluebirds) and 30 chambers (in two 15-foot-high colonies) designated for nesting pairs of purple martins.
“For me, the monitoring process is an adventure because every time I go to check nesting boxes I find something new – something I can evaluate in terms of the bird’s ‘life-cycle’ success,” said Michalski. “Most of the time we monitor the nests of five species: eastern bluebirds, tree swallows, chickadees, house wrens, and house sparrows. We learn to recognize the nest made by each of these species.”
Last week Michalski (who has a master’s degree in poetry from Ohio State) invited me to join her assisted by her friend and fellow birder Katherine Gould-Martin for what she described as an hour of “avian pplift.” We met on the 400-acre campus of Camphill Village where we would check dozens of nest boxes and their occupants. For me it was a unique and valuable learning experience.
My “uplift” began with a visit to one of the purple martin colonies perched atop a 15-foot post fitted with a crank device that permitted Michalski to lower the nesting chambers from 15 feet down to eye level. Then she directed me to carefully open each chamber, slide it out, and examine the contents. Most contained empty nests but a few boasted clutches of martin eggs. In one nest we discovered a light blue egg that didn’t belong to any purple martin.
“Starling egg!” Michalski frowned. “We’ve had a problem here with starlings.”
With that she removed the starling egg and disposed of it in her trusty trash bag.
“As committed birders we also learn to distinguish between different egg sizes, colors, and textures. Each bird lays a distinct egg – very exciting and easy to learn, because the smaller the bird, the smaller its egg.”
After examining each nestbox, she dutifully recorded the contents and status of each one on the extensive charts she keeps. In one chamber we discovered three smallish martin eggs that were stuck to the nest.
“That’s not good,” Michalski sighed. “That means they’re dead.” Then she removed those eggs and added them to the growing contents of her trash bag which also included a few abandoned nests.
Once the monitoring of the martin colony was completed, we cranked the nesting chambers back up to their original height and moved on to the first bluebird nestbox.
“The monitoring of ‘cavity-nesting’ birds is a meaningful, valuable process, because it can avert damage and ensure the nesting success of nesting birds and their young,” Michalski noted.
“Here we monitor two purple martin colonies and 54 individual nest boxes for eastern bluebirds and tree swallows,” said Michalski of her avian avatars. “We also acknowledge (and attempt to prevent) damage caused by non-native birds – primarily the house sparrow and the European starling.”
Following the same pattern as with the martin boxes, I carefully cracked open the first nestbox door to reveal five feisty tree swallow hatchlings. Michalski pointed out a unique characteristic of tree swallow nests: the fact that they’re always topped off with a thick layer of white feathers. Tree swallows and bluebirds often compete for the same nest boxes. Michalski recorded the find as I closed the door. Then she pointed out two strands of monofilament fishing line, one on each side of the box’s entranceway.
Those fishing lines keep out the house sparrows,” she said. “Sparrows land at the box with their wings spread out and those lines deny them entry but they don’t deter bluebirds or swallows.
“We learn to recognize the nest made by each of these species,” said Michalski. “Amazingly, each bird constructs a unique nest – containing different materials, different designs, and different depths. For example, the little chickadee builds a nest out of moss, with a top layer of fur, for warmth. The eastern bluebird constructs a nest out of dry grass or pine needles, and it has a ‘nest cup’ on top of about three inches of grassy material below it. The house wren builds a nest out of twigs and sticks, into which the female places soft material for her eggs.”
Michalski is no fan of invasive species like house sparrows and starlings, but she’s not too fond of house wrens either. Turns out that house wrens, unlike Carolina wrens, are very aggressive to other small birds and their eggs, and will evict them from nest boxes while breaking their eggs with their beaks. This is especially hard on other cavity nesters, especially chickadees.
Later on, we found another nest box occupied by tree swallows and a clutch of tree swallow eggs. This was not welcome news for Michalski since the last time she had checked this same box it had contained bluebird eggs which had been displaced by the tree swallows. Apparently, sometimes it’s a bird eat bird world out there.
“The best season for nest monitoring is spring and summer,” said Michalski. “Bluebirds are among the first birds to nest in the Spring, often starting their nests in late March. I begin monitoring in April and continue until late July, when most nests no longer have young in them.
“With experience, we learn to assess how ‘safe’ the nestbox and its environment are – and whether it might be prone to predation. We admire the beautiful handiwork of birds in their amazing nests. We normally do not move a nest or its nestbox, unless it is threatened by flooding or collapse, and, when we must move it, we install it as close to the original location as possible. Parent birds will find it. They never abandon their young, and their dedication to their offspring is exhilarating.
“No birds are driven away from their nests by the touch of human hands – that ‘old wives’ tale’ is completely false. When the nest is in top form, we know that the eggs and young have a good chance to become healthy mature birds. The entire nesting process is inspirational and I enjoy and thrive on a diet of monitoring bird nesting boxes. Our native birds mesmerize me with their flight styles, their unique nests, and their dedication to their young. Nothing is boring about monitoring because we are challenged and inspired every time we monitor.”
How to help
The Bluebird Society of PA, founded in 1998, submits year-end fledge reports to Hawk Mountain, the Pennsylvania Game Commission, and the Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources. They encourage BSP members to establish bluebird trails and monitor them, as well as train newcomers to Bluebirding.
This is how they build their BSP membership which currently numbers about 850. For more information about the Bluebird Society of PA go to their website at https://www.thebsp.org. If you’d like to join the BSP or learn how to monitor nestboxes, Marilyn Michalski can be reached at 610-933-0497 or by email at emealdmm@verizon.net.
Tom Tatum is the outdoors columnist for the MediaNews Group. You can reach him at tatumt2@yahoo.com.
Source: Berkshire mont