I monitor 125 bluebird nestboxes here in Western Dane County and have also
banded bluebirds from those nestboxes the past 25 years. Last year (2020) at
this time, I had 13 Eastern Bluebird nests with no eggs, 40 bluebird nests with
eggs and 1 bluebird nest with young (so approximately 54 active pairs). This
year (2021, this past week), I found only 7 bluebird nests with no eggs, 16
bluebird nests with eggs and 1 bluebird nest with newly hatched young (so
approximately 24 active pairs).
Tree Swallow nest starts also decreased from 7 in 2020 to 3 this past week.
Black-capped Chickadee (here year-round) nests are up— only 1 in 2020 as
compared to 5 this past week.
Of course, we will know more as the nesting season progresses, but my educated
guess is that the nesting pairs with eggs over-wintered here. I know this to
be the case in two of the locations, one being in my own yard.
Ann Wick
Black Earth
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