Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Bluebird society sponsors research projects
BELLA VISTA — The Bella Vista Bluebird Society has been sponsoring some research projects in hopes of furthering its goal of increasing and protecting the bluebird population of Bella Vista.
President Laura Claggett said the organization presented a grant to University of Arkansas doctoral student Will Kirkpatrick for $2,000 for a research project on how changing temperatures affect bluebirds.
Claggett said bluebirds are a good bird to study because their nests are easy to reach, but ultimately global warming will affect all birds. It is unknown if anything can be done about changing temperatures, but it is good to have an understanding of how birds are affected, she said.
“The birds started earlier (this year),” she said. “The bluebirds were making nests earlier, laying eggs earlier. If they’re really productive they like to get in three broods a year. They start in March, now early March, and they’re done by August.”
Conditions in the nest are not ideal in August, she said.
“You have these birds in the nest in 102-degree weather, and you think they’re going to burn up, and some of them do, frankly,” Claggett said. “We’ve talked about painting the roofs white, if the birds are going to use the box, which we want them to, but not to their detriment,” she said. “Maybe there’s ways to modify our boxes, maybe that’s something that could come out of his research.”
Butch Tetzlaff of The Bluebird Shed in Bella Vista and Dr. Jennifer Mortensen of the University of Arkansas have been working on another research project in connection with the Bluebird Society using its bluebird boxes.
Tetzlaff said the habitat study uses about 100 of the boxes and takes myriad variables into account to determine the birds’ preferences in selecting a box. The researchers considered things such as distance to the nearest tree, tree cover, height of vegetation, etc. Using a mathematical variable, they will be able to predict where birds are most likely to settle and help the Bluebird Society make decisions about placing boxes in the future.
Tetzlaff said a University of Arkansas graduate student, Shannon Kitchen, did a research project studying bluebird boxes during the non-breeding season. He said part of the bluebird population migrates south to Louisiana, but the ones that remain here are very dependent on the boxes in the winter. The question, he said, is what are the box conditions?
Kitchen wanted to know if nest material left from summer nesting could act as an insulation and influence birds to use the boxes that had it. Tetzlaff said the Bluebird Society would generally clean out the boxes in the fall, but it would be important information to know (if the birds preferred the nesting material), because if birds died in the cold temperatures, time and effort was wasted.
“It’s a simple little thing, but it’s important because if they die off they are not becoming part of the next breeding season,” he said.