Bluebird updates and other nesting news.

After we saw the House Wren checking out the Bluebird nesting box last week, we didn't see the Bluebirds for a few days. Then the male (or another male?) returned. We heard him singing and singing for a few mornings. No sign of the female. Now for the last few days, we see a male sitting on top of the box, poking his head in and checking it out inside and then back to sitting on top. No singing. No sign of the female. So...did the pair that started nest building move on? Did something happen to the female? Is this a new male? But wouldn't he keep singing to attract a mate?

Meanwhile, the Chickadees have left the nesting box. Just one little unhatched egg was left behind.


The Tree Swallows are close to leaving the nesting box. The parents seem to be trying to lure them out of the box, so it should be any time now. We're curious to see what happened in that nesting box. Are there layers of unhatched eggs? It took them a long time to get going in there, so we'll check it out when the box is empty once again.



And this morning we had a male Pileated Woodpecker in the front yard for the first time in quite awhile. He was working on the dead ash tree and then drumming on the nesting box. Nice to see him again!


As far as our work on naturalizing our property, we are still pulling up so much garlic mustard. There are literally thousands and thousands of plants and this is just the second year plants that go to seed. We probably work for about 2 hours each night (on average). It comes up easily enough but the disposal of it is time consuming. The good news is we have found a plethora of cup plants and milkweed!


Now that there's more space for these important and interesting native plants, I hope they will continue to spread and thrive. The garlic mustard battle will continue for some time, but we've had a good start this year. There are other non-natives we need to tackle, but we focused on the garlic mustard first just due to the time sensitivity before they go to seed. There are some other plants that we still need to ID- we don't know if they are native or not and it can be hard to distinguish. We need to connect with a native plant expert and get some help out here!

We also attended the garden tour for Project CHIRP! It was a very interesting and informative morning. Every time I speak with Christina, I learn something new. She's doing some amazing work and we find her very inspiring.