Restoring the Happiness of Bluebirds

Thanks to three decades of action by dedicated volunteers, eastern bluebirds are thriving again. There’s a lesson for all of us here

In Ontario, thanks to three decades of work by dedicated volunteers, eastern bluebirds are thriving again. Meanwhile in B.C., a bluebird translocation and repopulation program in the Cowichan Valley struggles, despite a promising start

FOR MEMBERS OF THE ONTARIO EASTERN BLUEBIRD SOCIETY, early spring brings more than respite from the dark days and freezing weather winter. It also brings the promise of bluebirds. If you live in rural areas of Ontario, you may have spotted an eastern bluebird or two flitting between bushes in their preferred semi-open habitat, perching on a berry bush or hovering above the ground to catch an insect. These plump thrushes (Sialia sialis) are about the size of a common house sparrow, at between 16 and 20 centimetres long, with a distinctive high-pitched trill and, of course, the blue plumage that gives them their name and contrasts nicely with their orange breasts. In most of Ontario, eastern bluebirds can be spotted during their breeding season, when they migrate northwards and pair off to mate and raise young, between late March and early September.

Eastern bluebirds are especially vulnerable — and especially cute — when they pair off and mate. In the wild, couples build nests in the hollows of trees, in fenceposts, and in any other little hole where they can raise a family. But those places are few and far between now: “Natural cavities suitable for bluebirds are scarce in agricultural landscapes,” says Mike Cadman, a songbird biologist at the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change Canada.

That’s where this society of bird-lovers, led by founder Bill Read, comes in. After a spate of chill winters in the 1970s coupled with decreasing habitat and threats from pesticide use on the agricultural lands they used instead, their natural nesting sites were becoming harder to find and fledge from. That made nest boxes of the kind Read and the Ontario Eastern Bluebird Society foster essential to the species’ recovery. “Bluebird boxes and trails have contributed considerably to the increase of the species by increasing the number and availability of nest sites in suitable habitat,” Cadman says.

After they’ve gotten acquainted, a courting pair of eastern bluebirds builds a small cup-shaped nest, with the female doing most of the construction work. There, if all goes well — that is, if they aren’t threatened by invaders like house sparrows or rats, and their nest isn’t destroyed by the weather, and the birds are able to find and consume enough insects to keep reproducing productively — they can fledge up to three broods of between four and seven baby birds apiece. Both female and male birds hang around to bring food to their young, which take 18 or 19 days before they leave the nest and set out on their own. Sometimes, young from the last brood hang around to help feed the new nestlings.

Many Ontario Eastern Bluebird Society members have numerous nest boxes, which means that in a single year, one person may fledge hundreds of new birds. In 2018, as the society celebrated its 30th anniversary, its members collectively fledged more than 4,200 bluebirds and thousands of tree swallows, wood doves and kestrels.

Their “nest box trails,” as groups of nest boxes are referred to, and public education initiatives are credited with helping the eastern bluebird to grow and stabilize its population after years of decline, putting the species on track. After being designated a species of special concern in 1984, they became common enough to be deemed “not at risk” by the federal Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada in April 1996. The population growth of these birds is “in large part as a result of a successful nest box program,” Environment Canada acknowledges. It’s a story we can all learn from.

Read founded the Ontario Eastern Bluebird Society in 1988 as a way to rally like-minded people around the charismatic little birds and encourage responsible nest box building. He had been keeping nest boxes as a hobby since he worked at a wildlife centre in the mid-1970s. Back then, “I started to observe bluebirds more,” he says. Seeing that many of the birds weren’t surviving in the nest boxes nailed to trees, he wanted to do better. Today, he has almost 400 boxes.

Read isn’t alone in catching the nest box bug: some members of the Ontario Eastern Bluebird Society are responsible for literally hundreds of boxes, which they check anywhere from daily to monthly. But it’s more than a hobby: it’s citizen science. Today, the society has an executive leadership of 10 people and a membership of around 170 people. Many of the members are retirees who care for birds to keep busy, Read says, but other members are just enthusiastic about the task at any age.

“I grew up in a farming community,” says board member Mary Ann Rose, “and we had a neighbour.… I used to see him going by with nest boxes and monitoring nest boxes.” When she had children and a farm of her own, Rose carried on the tradition. She joined the society in 2006, after many years of fledging birds. “There are some good mentors there, and it’s kind of a common interest among the group,” she says.

For Read, the bluebirds and the society he founded became a life’s work: although he was a high school teacher for many years, around the time he founded the society, he went to work for Canadian Wildlife

Passionate volunteers are responsible for hundreds of nest boxes, which they check regularly. It is more than just a hobby: it is citizen science

Service, “doing studies on blue birds and tree swallows and pesticides related to orchards,” he says.

This research bent is reflected in the activities of the Ontario Eastern Bluebird Society today, from banding birds for study to the rigorous annual counts and recording practices the society asks of its members who maintain nest box trails. All told, these resources represent 30 years of data on understudied species — the eastern bluebird and other cavity-nesting birds like tree swallows.

The monitoring activities performed by the society provide important information on the health of the environment where the birds live, Rose says. “They’re bioindicators, because they tell us about the health of our environment in other ways,” Rose says. “As species decline, you have to think ‘why?’”

Many members erect and maintain nest box trails, sometimes in collaboration — Rose shares a trail with another society member, for example. Building and maintaining such a trail, which provides vital habitat for the bluebirds and for other cavity-nesting birds, is no small task.

While among the society’s members there are power nest box builders who devote unending hours to the task of building them, the trick if you’re interested is to start small, Read says. “The easiest part of any nest box project is building them. We account that as about five per cent of the work.”

Although you might have built and erected a birdhouse on a tree as a child, that’s a far cry from what Ontario Eastern Bluebird Society members and others who create nest box trails do. Early each spring, “you’re doing your cleanouts and greasing poles and managing your boxes in every way, making sure they’re ready for the birds when they come back,” says Rose.

The most important things are putting the boxes in the right kinds of places, having protection from predators and regularly monitoring the boxes to see what’s happening in them. The society endorses only freestanding boxes on a greased pole or with a guard to prevent predation of the nests by everything from field mice and squirrels to house sparrows and wrens. (Boxes sitting on fences or nailed to trees are “just highways for predators,” Read explains.)

It’s not a task for the faint of heart. The nestlings are vulnerable, and all kinds of things can happen: a recent newsletter relates the story of

a volunteer who managed to save some chicks after a long period of cold, wet weather meant their parents were able to find only earthworms to feed them, rather than the mix of beetles and flying insects that’s usual. The resulting diarrhea coated the nest and the nestlings, endangering the nestlings. But an intrepid volunteer who found them managed to clean them (in the back of her car, with a bottle of water warmed on the car heater) and rehome them in a nest that wasn’t experiencing this problem. They all survived.

“It really is amazing, the nurturing and things that go on,” says Rose. “It’s nice to have a small hand in that process.” In return for their labours, members get the satisfaction of watching a new generation of birds come into the world. “A lot of our members will feed them meal worms,” Read says, sometimes spending thousands of dollars a season to do so.

Cavity-nesting birds like the eastern bluebird are under threat like never before, as their traditional habitats are built over or farmed on and the weather becomes more volatile as a result of climate change. But they’re important to local biodiversity, and keeping them alive is a way to support the whole ecosystem. “The OEBS does tremendous work on behalf of bluebirds, by encouraging people to build good boxes and use them wisely, by informing people about the species and by collecting useful data on these beautiful birds,” Cadman says.

If species like the eastern bluebird are to survive and thrive into the uncertain future, more people will have to take on an active role in helping them. Perhaps there’s a bird in your area that needs such assistance.