History of Bluebirding (Part 2)

Also see Population.

In addition to Messages that have appeared in the Bluebird Mailing Lists on this topic, the following are on the Audubon Society of Omaha website: 

History of the bluebird movement by Diane Barbin History of the Bluebird Movement written by Dr. Lawrence Zeleny from Andre Dion's book The Return of the Bluebird

From: rebel1956"at"comcast.net [mailto:rebel1956"at"comcast.net]
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 12:23 AM
Subject: Re: Reliant on Humans (was "RE: two holes and predators"

I just moved to Fauquier County (Warrenton) last Friday and there are Bluebirds all over my yard, but they all seemto be nesting in natural cavities in old swamp white oaks. Every Bluebird house I've seen that doesn't look like it was made this year has a house sparrow male sitting on top and a female poking her beak out the entrance(no trouble ID'ing the females in this scenario). I've removed and/or permanently relocated 8 house sparrows in three days. There are literally thousands of house sparrows and Eurostars visible or audible at any point in daylight time in NOVA horse country.

I put up four houses on my 4 acres and after the first box was installed (on an 8 foot iron pole near where the house sparrow nest box was on a high line pole) the Bluebirds literally followed me around to watch me put up the other three boxes and were immediately in and out!

I think there is no question that we took away natural cavities and introduced aggressive competetors Bluebirds didn't evolve with. That said, Bluebird populations have probably increased and declined with changing human influences on the environment since Homo sapiens arrived in North America. The Bluebird (Eastern at least) population is nowhere near threatened at this point. But they are dependent on us for a place to nest.

More important than checking for Blow flies, snakes, etc. is putting up well designed, well placed, well observed, dry cavities for them to nest in and keeping the invaders out. Some Bluebirds are meant to be food for native snakes and raccoons, but they didn't evolve to compete with feral cats, house sparrows and starlings, or nest boxes 4 feet off the ground, with or without a predator guard.

Just my opinions. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Rob Barron

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas
>From the book "THE HOUSE SPARROW IN AMERICA" 1889
House sparrows were selling in Albany for $1 per hundred or 12 for 25 cents.

"Sparrows are still a feature of the market, and one Albany lad, Charles Lambert by name, shot 135 of the little pests Saturday, out of a single flock of about 500, on the outskirts of the city. A well-known game and poultry dealer took in 1,700 of them last week and sold about all. Yesterday the same man disposed of two hundred, (Nov. 7,1887.)
The Albany youth are still waging war on the Sparrows, and they are all gradually being driven from the city. One game and poultry dealer in town has thus far bought and then sold to others about 3,800 of the little pests.
They make excellent pot-pie and are regarded as excellent eating by those who have made the trial. The flavor is said to be somewhat like that of reed-birds (probably red winged blackbirds KK) and much superior to quail.
(Nov. 18,1887.

Fruits ripe or ripening that English Sparrows were known to feed on:
Grapes, Cherries, Strawberries, Raspberries, Apples, Currants, Pears, Plums, Tomatoes, Blackberries, Peaches, Figs, Gooseberries, Mulberries, Wild Cherries, and Apricots.

Green vegetables, mostly young:
Young peas just coming up, Green peas from the pod, Beans, Young lettuce plants or leaves, Young cabbage plants or leaves, Young beet plants or leaves, Young turnip plants or leaves, Young radish plants or leaves, Young corn just coming up, Garden corn in the ear.

Garden seeds they commonly ate:
Lettuce, Cabbage, Beet, Turnip, Radish, Flowers, Sunflower. (Sunflowers were their favorite! Farmers complained of losing their entire crops to English Sparrows. KK)

Seeds or young plants they occasionally ate:
Mustard, Spinach, Hemp, Flax, Artichoke, Salsify, Cauliflower, Carrot, Parsnip, Tobacco, Pepper.

Reports of them eating Tuber-roses, tulips and sweet peas.

They ate all types of grain grown for people or livestock.

About 1/3 of the people believed that the English Sparrow was beneficial due to the huge amounts of weeds seeds that they ate in the fields and yards.
Sparrows shot in one vineyard only had noxious weed seeds in their gizzard.

"Out of 522 stomachs of English Sparrows examined at the Department of Agriculture during the summer of 1887, 102 contained grass seed and 85 contained weed seeds. In nearly all cases where many Sparrows have been dissected in summer and fall, considerable quantities of weed seed have been found."

Grains: They preferred ripening wheat, then oats, rye, barley, all types of sorghum or Milo, they liked Hungarian grass (millet was a common name for
that:-) They ate rice and wild rice and were hated as much as the "Rice Birds" (Bob-O- Links) by the rice farmers. They really liked Buckwheat but it was grown only in a few places that had Sparrows at this time.

Grass seeds: They were known to eat nearly all native grasses and those imported for yards.

Stomach contents of 2,455 English Sparrows were studied. Of these 345 or about 14% showed any insect remains. Insects rarely made up more than 2% of the entire contents of any of these sparrow stomachs.

"It is probably safe to say that as a rule nine-tenths of the food of city
sparrows- so long as they remain within city limits-is derived from horse droppings, and most of the remainder is house refuse."

Almost 120 years later we have people on this list still blaming horses for the numbers of sparrows in their area:-)) Across the country others blame cheap bird seed:-)) The scary part is each of them may be right! Only if you remove all of the horses and all of the cheap bird seed I am pretty sure they will be just as happy to eat something else. We have to remember that House Sparrows now live on every continent and some countries don't have many horses and most countries cannot buy enough grain to feed all their own people let alone put up bird feeders.

From: Keith & Sandy Kridler [mailto:txbluebirder"at"sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 7:25 PM
Subject: Re: Wooden face Guards & auction item

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas another hot and dry day here in East Texas, is it really snowing in the Dakota's!

Harry Krueger in Ore City Texas did not get interested in bluebirds till he was almost in his 70's. Then he went "Nuts" over the bluebirds, took some college courses so that he could become a Master Bird Bander and spent 7 hours a day 6 days a week banding and watching Eastern Bluebirds. He went from being a novice, backyard bluebirder to one of the premier bluebird experts in the country in a span of about 12 years.

He always used a wood predator guard or face guard on his nestboxes as he did not trust his nesting birds to the available predator guards that were then available. The extra 7/8" thickness does not help a whole lot most of the time but it does not hurt either and ONCE in a while it is the difference between living and dying! He trapped his nesting adult birds and color banded them so that he could track fidelity between pairs of bluebirds and fidelity of the individual pairs to their nestbox. He WANTED his bluebirds to survive day to day and year to year and come back so he could trap them next nesting attempt.

Since he was spending all these hours watching the nestbox through a spotting scope waiting to spring his state of the art radio controlled, in the nestbox trap from his car. (He invented this trap back in the 1980's). He was usually sitting 100>200 feet away from the box and he noticed that on windy days the birds seemed to have trouble landing on the fronts of his nestboxes from time to time. It was as if they missed hanging a toe nail on the edge of the hole and they would appear to thump into the front of the box...Not real often but it happened and happened with many of the pairs of bluebirds.

So he started to experiment with adding saw kerfs to the front of the face guard on the outside of the nestbox. He started cutting grooves right up under the hole and experimented with all different widths between the grooves and watched closely how the female or male would land and which grooves they would use and the width or span of their toes....Anyway he found that most bluebirds used grooves that were starting at 3/4" below the entrance hole. He found that they used up to four grooves below the entrance hole and that the grooves needed to be just a skinny under 1/2" center to center or that you left just over 3/8" of wood for them to grasp. He cut the grooves 3/16" deep for their toe nails to latch into.

He watched them land on the guards and noticed that they braced their tail against the nestbox and experimented in different lengths of guards and settled on a guard that extended a full 4" below the entrance hole.

Harry built a fantastic nestbox out of 7/8" rough cedar, used water proof glue on all the joints, hinged the roof and used stainless steel screws, used stainless steel screws on the face guard. He used a tee hinge on the nestbox bottom so that for cleaning you could drop the bottom out of the box and scrape the box clean. The latch screw runs into a lead shield that is glued into the wood and these boxes have lasted for 25 years on his old trail. It helps that he glued down a piece of fiberglass shingle to the roof and sealed this with three coats of white roof sealer. Harry and I were using oversize roofs way back then and his roof is a full 9"X12" and was dipped in silicone sealer for 15 minutes. The boxes I have are only 6" deep from bottom of hole to top of floor but he used some deeper boxes.

When Harry died in 1993 his family gave me a couple of his new spare nestboxes for his trail. I will part with one of these for the NABS auction in San Antonio....I will pick the one where he fire branded his name into the nestbox. Pauline is going to take e-mail bids on some of these once in a lifetime items. KK

For those philatelists on the list, I just set up a new webpage with bluebird stamps on it (U.S.,
Bermuda, Canada). If I've missed any for places where bluebirds actually exist (i.e., not Mongolia),
or if you have any interesting facts about the stamps, I'd love to hear from you.

...

http://www.sialis.org/bluebirdstamps.htm

Bet from CT

Interesting story from last year here: http://www.local6.com/news/4804094/detail.html about someone who put a gargantuan blue bird statue on their roof. The Village's Historic Preservation Board ordered the owner to take the bird off the chimney or face a $100 a day fine. It says it is "Big Bird" but the Sesame Street Big Bird is yellow (he lives in my town. Really.)

I must add this to my Bluebird History page....

Bet from CT

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas
For the newcomers to this list Dick Tuttle started by placing 22 nestboxes for bluebirds in Delaware County in Ohio in 1968. Since then he has raised
8,235 Eastern Bluebirds, 16,686 Tree Swallows, 5,514 House Wrens, 508 Carolina Chickadees, 47 Tufted Titmice. He also places nestboxes for Kestrels, Wood Ducks, owls and builds platforms for osprey and on and on....Of course he bands most of these birds and monitors more than 360 nestboxes weekly. Notice he does not list how many House Sparrows he has
removed:-)) KK

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas
Some bird species head south well ahead of the cold temperatures. Others seem to wait for the free ride they get from a strong cold front and they ride the wind hundreds of miles a day just as the Monarch Butterflies do.

It is interesting that many of the cavity nesters like titmice and chickadees and the woodpeckers really don't seem to migrate in massive numbers. For most species it really depends on what foods they will eat.

For bluebirds it seems to depend more on the severity of the winters and the amount of available food. Mockingbirds and Carolina Wrens are a couple of species that rapidly expanded their northern winter ranges with mild winters and more suet and food at feeders that they can eat. Many of these species can survive a winter with a couple of really cold weeks and then the next season more of the young from these parents who don't migrate also remain in the far north.

As more power plants are built they dump millions of gallons of hot water into rivers and lakes and this creates micro climates where insects and other food is available even during the coldest months. Another good feeding area in river bottoms in the far north is near municipal water treatment plants as again they dump a lot of warm water preventing freezing of the river down stream from the plants.

Many birds have learned to sleep on top of or even inside of street lights or in the attics or in the open carports where humans or their buildings provide warmth or at least shelter during the night. Hog, dairy and poultry operations are now in massive buildings with a steady supply of flies and maggots and MANY species of insects in the litter and manure that gets spread even during winter months. During the day it is common to see insect eating birds hovering around exhaust fans feeding on insects leaving these types of buildings.

Global warming in Saint Paul Minn.?
In "The English Sparrow In North America" book published in 1889 there is an interesting account or documentation of what winter was like in the 1870's in that area. I am going to copy a couple of paragraphs describing winter there from the book:

"English Sparrows were introduced at Saint Paul, Minn. as early as the fall of 1876; yet at the present time there are so few that they are seldom noticed. The following statement by an observant resident of that place, Mr.
Morton Barrows, shows at least one cause, and that undoubtedly the principal one, for this state of things, He Says:

""Our streets are not cleaned in winter, sleds being used universally, Moreover, we have no thaws, and everything remains frozen solid until spring. At 30 degrees below zero horse droppings freeze almost instantly, and are generally covered with the loose fine snow of the streets as they fall, that is, it is so cold that there is always a fine, loose surface snow, from 1 to 5 inches deep, even in the most used streets, and anything falling into that is quickly buried by passing teams.

Not much grain is moved here in any weather, especially not in winter. The ground is generally covered deep with snow from the middle of November until April, and I do not see what Sparrows can find to feed on. Again, we have more or less deposit each day, even in clear weather. When it is intensely cold spicule fall in large quantities, generally in the morning, while snow-storms are very frequent. All manner of refuse is thus quickly covered.""

This book was published just before the MASSIVELY deadly winters of
1889>1891. This was the time frame when cold swept down through the
1889>plains
states and wiped out the mostly English cattle operations from Montana to Texas and ended "free range" cattle operations for good as nearly all cattle in the "west" not fed or sheltered perished. The cold spread around the world in the northern hemisphere at that time and wiped out the flower trade in Holland to the point they switched to growing the cold hardy Tulip bulbs.

Cold winters with snow and ice kill out birds that have forgotten they need to migrate every 20 or 30 years. It would be interesting for someone living around Saint Paul Minn. to comment on what this farmer saw just 130 years ago during his lifetime in this area. I recall the severe winters in Northeast Ohio in the early 1960's where diesel fuel turned to jelly in outside tanks. Again in the late 1970's cold, snow and ice wiped out the non migrating bluebirds in much of the country.

It is amazing to me that the bluebird species can endure such a wide range of breeding conditions and predators! It is hard for me to imagine people on this list with bluebirds and swallows that only have a high daily temperature in the upper 40's this week while we are baking in the south with overnight LOW temperatures only in the low 70's. My tomatoes are actually cooking in the sun and you have to protect the orange tomato fruit from the sun or the fruit sunburns.KK

From: William Freels [mailto:w.freels"at"worldnet.att.net]
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2006 9:54 AM
Subject: Re: NABS resignations............Need to hear song of Mr. Blue Bird

zippedadoda & mister bluebird on my shoulder &
my o my what a wonderful day.
I thank my first hearing of this was by Fanny Brice
in the early 1940s.
We had a hollow chestnut telephone pole at the road in front of our home and this hollow always had bluebirds in it.
My parents told me to not bother the bluebirds.....but the hole was low enough that I could hold my hand over it and catch the parent bluebirds as they came out. The parent bluebirds were very tame and my catching them did not seem to scare them. My butt would have been in bad shape if my parents had caught me. This was in the late 30s into the early 40s.

Building many (100s) bluebird nestboxes in the years that followed and giving them to people that were interested in bluebirds was my main contribution until I retired from the millwork & building supply business.

After retiring, I became aware of the need for a better nestbox than was generally recommended. I stirred-up the pot concerning nestbox design and several bluebird persons had their feeling hurt because they had their poor designs that were their pride and joy. I am proud that I did not go along with the crowd and let bluebirds suffer and die.

We all have our pride and my pride sometimes causes me to not be as cooperative as would be best. But, it is bluebirds that we all desire to help and so let's all try to get along.
Bill Freels
Paducah, Ky

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas Hey we got .31 inches of rain last
night:-))
This is pretty easy to go back to research the Canadians who were only finding a few pairs of bluebirds across entire provinces back in the 1950's and 60's. Charlie Ellis in Alberta and John and Nora Lane in (Manitoba &
Saskatchewan?) only had a pair or two and these were the ONLY ones reported by ANY birders in their areas. With the use of massive bluebird nestbox trails their trails fledged thousands over the next 40 years. Same goes for the Mountain Bluebird trails group. They went from fledging or even seeing only a hand full of bluebirds for the entire year to reporting an absolute explosion today.

I quote from a NABS letter from Mary Janetatos in 1984 when New York State had just proclaimed the First Annual Bluebird Week in the state. The island of Bermuda had just formed a "Bluebird Society". NABS (Mary and helpers had mailed out..."Another 500,000 educational brochures (Where have all the Bluebirds Gone?) have been mailed ((read this as a LOT of postage stamps.
These brochures gave detailed nestbox plans and monitoring instructions)).

"20,162 bluebirds were reported fledged last year from 12,730 nestboxes."

Spin forward to 1999 and Steve Eno worked with just ONE of hundreds of bluebird nestbox manufacturers to get monitoring data inserted into each box this company built and to change the Bluebird nestboxes a little to be "NABS APPROVED" this one company was selling MORE than 226,000 nestboxes EVERY year through 1998. Another nestbox producer one week later switched over his productions of 20,000 nestboxes a year to "NABS APPROVED" and began inserting an Info sheet in each nestbox.

Spin BACK to 1964 when my family moved to East Texas and I knew of four natural cavities with Eastern Bluebirds nesting in them. As the hollow trees blew down this is where I began my off property nestbox trail. At each of these sites a new wood box replaced the fallen cavity. Monitored nestboxes EXPLODED the local population of bluebirds in and around our area. I went from fledging 35 bluebirds to 135 bluebirds to 325 to 1235 by 1979 in just four years. I scattered nestboxes in and area 30 miles wide north/south to 40 miles wide east to west. In 1982 at my brothers landscape business we gave away a nestbox with every bare root fruit tree he sold and that year we gave away more than 600 wood nestboxes that I had built during the previous winter.

In the mid 1970's almost NO ONE at a bluebird program had seen a bluebird.
Today almost EVERYONE coming to a bluebird program has up nestboxes or has seen a bluebird in the LAST week. KK

From: Keith & Sandy Kridler [mailto:txbluebirder"at"sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 8:10 AM
Subject: Where have all the Bluebirds Gone
Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas

This was originally the title of the four page color tri-fold brochure that NABS printed out giving them out by the hundreds of thousands to people needing a set of nest box plans, how to monitor, why the bluebirds needed help and showing population maps of all three species so that people could see if bluebirds were in their part of North America because the maps covered from Mexico to Canada. I believe they often got a little corporate help to cover some of the printing costs of these. When on the Speakers Bureau for NABS we bought these by the hundred or thousand at a nominal cost and these were great for leaving with the people coming to a bluebird talk.

Sometime in the more recent past NABS re-worked this brochure and titled it "Welcome Back the Bluebirds" (??) because the bluebirds HAVE made a remarkable recovery in many parts of the country with the Western Species lagging behind but much of this species range is remote territory and few people live where the habitat for them is good across the Western States.

Both of these brochures are now quite rare and will be a bluebird collectors item someday. There are probably some of the old speakers still sitting on several hundred of these. I never bought the "Welcome Back" brochure as by this time I modified some of the NABS fact sheets for Texas bluebirders and were using our own set of nestbox plans.

NABS also sent out letters to EVERY library in the continental USA and all the librarian had to do was check a box on a return postcard and NABS sent them a free copy of Larry Zeleny's Bluebird book for each library. If you search EBAY now you can often find Larry's old library books now being dumped to make room for more widely read books. Back in 1976 there was only ONE bluebird book.

In a reprint of John K. Terres "SONGBIRDS IN YOUR GARDEN" (original was from the late 40's early 50's) he included a chapter in the new book on how to build a bluebird trail. I think this reprint came out in the early maybe late 70's. Everything available in books about bluebird trails was contained in these two and then there were a lot of old books that told stories about common birds especially birds common to the yards but these were cute story books and not based on any research. KK

Rob and Bluebirders:

In either 70' or 71' I needed a special projects - biology, so I made 20 to
25
Eastern Bluebird (EABL) nest boxes near Emporia State, east-central Kansas.

I had a TOTAL of three EABL nests for the entire season!

Today, if nest boxes were placed on the same trail (and if it was still rural, of course) virtually all of the boxes would be used multiple times!

PS I was a member of NABS at the time and so was almost a charter member if I
would have kept up the dues. Didn't thought since we almost went broke in
school....

Good birding, Larry H. Joplin (sw) MO..

Hi Keith and All,

The blue membership form flyer was titled "Welcome Back the Bluebird" -- (singular).

....

Mary Jane Shearer; Tucker, GA

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas a hot but dry 79*F sunrise NABS membership back in 1984 was a little over 4,000 members BUT they had mailed out over 500,000 copies of the color brochure "Where have all the bluebirds gone?" or about 125 REALLY NICE mailings/handouts per paying member received/retained. This was back when memberships were $15.00 a year and I haven't looked up what Sialia cost per member or have checked into what the brochures or postage cost at that time. (NABS has NONE of these original copies still in inventory!!! I have TWO water damaged copies in my collection still!)

When NABS moved to Wisconsin they reworked the original four page full color brochure into a beautiful "new" four page full color brochure titled "WELCOME BACK THE BLUEBIRD!" In this one that I still have, (I found NONE of these fairly new brochures in ANY of MANY boxes of NABS records/assets that I still have here at my house) they promote the Transcontinental Bluebird Trail, explain about "NABS Approved" nestboxes and why to buy these, upgraded the conservation efforts of NABS over the years and included beautiful color photos of all three species of bluebirds and even have a shot promoting the downy woodpecker but they dropped the nearly full page of nestbox plan of a nesting box. I received about 100 of these for the price I normally could buy about a 1,000 of the "Where have all the Bluebirds gone?"
the last time I ordered them. The back of this really nice brochure states, "This brochure is made possible by the generous support of: Wildbirds Unlimited and Colonial Pipeline Company (They each got about an 1&1/2" tall add block by 3" long.) NABS annual membership was STILL only $15.00 after 20 years of price increases in the real world!

When NABS moved to Ohio they again reworked/reworded "WELCOME BACK THE BLUEBIRD!"
But now it was a single sheet of blue paper, dropped all of the color photo's and it is a nice front/back black ink copy of a membership form with minimal info on starting or maintaining nestboxes. Annual membership in NABS by 2001 had finally been increased to $20 per year but students or seniors could still join at $40.00 for three years or for $13.33 a year average cost!

The original brochure was designed so Mary Janetatos could keep a stack of these by the phone and write in an address for people wanting a WIDE assortment of questions answered and get a set of nestbox plans to them quickly. She could stick a stamp on this trifold and mail it out. Both of the reworked brochures need to be put in an envelope, addressed and mailed.
Again NABS has NONE of these blue membership forms in stock, I have a couple of old ones still.

Anyway years ago I began using a combination of NABS fact sheets and deleting Tree Swallows and House Wren info on them since we don't have them in Texas and cutting out the blow fly info and substituting other native Texas Cavity nesters info on these and I have ALWAYS included NABS contact information on the bottoms of these sheets.

Since April of this year I and my TMGA have given out more than 2,000 pages of bluebird information with NABS contact info on the bottom of each sheet to the groups our Texas Master Gardeners go to and the groups we help build wood nestboxes and gourd bird houses. Sandy, Shawn and I donate the material for boxes, the time & money needed to grow, clean, dry and store the gourds and the amount of time to cut out these nestbox kits.

On July 11 I helped a 4-H camp build more than 100 nestboxes. The kids were from various counties across Texas and 17 Texas Agricultural Extension Agents got to see the kids build these nestboxes and each of these counties (sometimes one agent now has three Texas counties to work in due to budget
cuts) they each now have NABS bluebird information to print out for ALL of the 4-H groups in the Eastern half of Texas. The county agents over see ALL the 4-H groups in the state of Texas. These agents are also in charge of the Texas Master Gardener Association and Junior Texas Master Gardener Association and they are going to implement this "Bluebird Nestbox building"
into various counties and groups across the state. They will copy and distribute NABS info sheets at each of the offices and at each event. (They scheduled me from 10>12 AM for one group but we started early at 8:30 with an extra group but ALL of the kids ended up building nestboxes and we worked non-stop all afternoon till 4:30 PM. One little girl REALLY did a good job and needed almost NO help from me as we worked with the last five kids.....THEN she tells me that I have helped HER build three different nestboxes during the day.....You know all kids look alike:-))

I actually get our Chamber of Commerce to donate a couple of reams of copies each year and my county agents have donated a couple of reams of copies but Sandy and I donate the rest and each sheet needs to pertain to questions new bluebirders have with contact information back to NABS and from NABS website they can go to various state or local affiliates of NABS.

Just because you give out thousands of pages of bluebird information does NOT mean you will EVER get a single person to join NABS or any other group, they may not even put up their nestboxes that they build! Bribing people to join your group is about as easy as bribing your neighbor to put up nestboxes and help your local bluebirds. To keep them helping you often have to go and check your neighbors nestboxes yourself:-)) KK

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas
This Kinney box design was published about 60 years ago now from the Terres song bird book. I don't recall the date this guy started using four holed nestboxes. I have a newspaper article dated 1965 where John K. Terres was promoting placing nestboxes for bluebirds, starting a trail, monitoring nestboxes and it has a nestbox plan that is deeper and larger than the nestboxes for bluebirds that he had in his first 6 printing of his very good book. Shame I got the newspaper article 41 years after it was published:-)) My dad started building nestboxes with his book back in the 1940's.

It was common for early nestboxes for bluebirds to be HUGE. People used what lumber they had. Few people back in the 1920's had electricity for circular saws or tablesaws:-)) KK

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas
I got an e-mail saying that Jack Finch, from Bailey, North Carolina suffered a stroke about 6 weeks ago and still has significant memory loss. We can only hope that he recovers fully as he is probably the most knowledgeable bluebirder left today in the USA.

As Jack got older and it became harder for him to travel, Jack, his lovely wife Ruby and their son Dan built a conference room at their blueberry farm so that bus loads of children or adults could come and enjoy bluebird programs put on by Jack. They could tour an extensive bluebird trail at the farm and walk among three acres of irrigated mature dogwood trees that had been planted so that Jack could harvest the berries for winter feeding of bluebirds. Jack alternated planting a dogwood tree with Foster Holly trees in long rows that provide evergreen cover throughout the year and hold berries late into spring for many species of birds, especially the bluebirds to feed on.

During summer months, birds can feast on thousands of blueberry plants since Dan maintains the largest collection of different varieties of blueberries in the Eastern USA. It is used by the USDA as a test plot for new introductions of blueberries. (Not all blueberries are blue as we saw yellow and white fruited ones there last year.)

Dan's true love is firing pottery and he has one of the largest wood fired kilns in the country and at the annual fall pottery festival at the Finch farm they draw about 10,000 people annually. Jack always laughed while his son was drawing in the crowds to see the kiln and people from all over the world filling and firing the kiln with magnificent pieces of art he would be working the "bluebird conference" room and educating the public about helping the bluebirds. He always thought it was funny that people would be hauling away many more bluebird nestboxes and poles to their cars than they would exquisite pieces of fired clay.

Jack has a couple of women helping him build nestboxes year round and during the "off" season he stores and stacks nestboxes floor to ceiling in several old grain storage silos, and an old farm house that they would fill the rooms up to the point you could not even enter the house without selling all of the nestboxes neatly stacked in rows and rows. He actually started selling nestboxes fairly late in life but at last count I believe he had made way over 230,000 nestboxes. (Maybe someone can send a link to one of the "history articles" on Jack from various publications.)

Anytime you lose a bluebirder like Joseph O'Halloran from Wisconsin or have one like Jack suffer a severe illness you realize how important it is for us to reach out like they have over the years and share their knowledge with the younger generation or actually ANYONE interested in helping these small cavity nesters. It is actually easy to share the joy that bluebirds can bring into a persons life. Begin like so many of you have with your extended family and your close friends. Be sure and visit with your neighbors about the bluebirds you are raising in your backyard nestbox.

Branch out a little and stop in and visit with the people at that house with nestboxes nailed to every other fence post in their yard:-)) Look for people with GREAT bluebird habitat, multiple birdfeeders but NO nestboxes:-)) Find that older carpenter in your area with dust covered saws that needs a better reason to get up in the morning and start building small houses so you can help new people begin a lifetime of loving and caring for the birds. Check out the doctor offices for the older people who have forgotten the joys of youth and now are forced to walk hours a week in boring circles in shopping malls or on tread mills to keep their hearts pumping. Instead get them involved in walking their/your very own "bluebird trail" at a nearby park or golf course or ANY large open area. Hit up your county or cities or Master Gardener groups to upgrade public walking trails into nature trails.

Each year another 3&1/2 million people are living in the USA and we build another 1 million new homes a year for people. It is up to people just like you and I to teach them how to enjoy their new homes and help them help wildlife or at least learn to live with the rest of the tiny creatures on earth..EVERY single day we lose bluebirders that have devoted countless hours of their lives to helping the bluebirds in their area. Most you have NEVER heard of as they did this quietly on their own land but these are the people we are losing that are so hard to replace. KK

From: DrDodson"at"aol.com [mailto:DrDodson"at"aol.com]
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2006 12:56 PM
Subject: Bluebirding in Missouri

Topic: New NABS affiliate in Missouri, first annual conference, looking for bluebirders and any history of bluebirding in the state.

I am a new bluebirder in Missouri.

The Eastern Bluebird is our State Bird and apparently the state has a history of active and organized bluebirding.....

The following information was presented as part of a history discussion at the 2006 NABS convention in San Antonio

One of the most obscure yet most ambitious efforts in the history of bluebird conservation was the development of the National Bluebird Trail. It started with the Junior Audubon Club of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, organized by Mrs. Oscar Findley in 1938. Under her guidance the Club developed a successful bluebird trail locally. Soon thereafter Mrs. Erie R. Jackson of
the Better Garden Club of Kirkwood, Missouri secured permission from the Missouri Highway Department to place nesting boxes along Missouri highways. Her club adopted this plan as their project early in 1942 and began developing a state-wide trail. Later that year the trail was taken over by the State Board of Federated Garden Clubs of Missouri and the Missouri
Bluebird Trail consisting of 2,680 nesting boxes was officially dedicated. Within three years garden clubs in 23 states from coast to coast had joined the effort and on May 9, 1945 the National Bluebird Trail was formally dedicated in Springfield, Missouri. By 1946 a total of 6,728 nesting boxes had been erected.
Unfortunately interest in maintaining this mammoth project soon waned, probably because of lack of strong central leadership. The trail began to disintegrate and before long ceased to exist as an entity. Segments of it, however, in various areas were continued and the project no doubt served a useful purpose in arousing the interest of many people who have continued to help the bluebirds in local areas.

Despite this, until this year there was no State Affiliate of NABS in Missouri. I thought we needed some sort of State Bluebird Organization. Steve Garr (outgoing president of NABS) and his wife Regina helped me form one.

We will have our first meeting Saturday, September 9th in Jefferson City, Missouri. Keith Kreidler has agreed to drive all the way from Texas to be our Keynote speaker. We are very grateful and excited to have him participate.

This is an open invitation to any bluebirders in the region who are interested.

There is further information and an registration form on our Website www.missouribluebird.org

Even if folks are not able to joing the Society or come to the meeting, I would love to hear from other bluebirders in the area and am very interested in any historical information about bluebirding in Missouri that peolple know of.

Thanks
Jack Dodson

From: Pauline Tom [mailto:ptom"at"austin.rr.com]
Sent: Sunday, February 04, 2007 11:02 PM
Subject: Bluebirding: How many bluebirds, nestboxes & bluebirders?

For over 80 years ago, "bluebird trails" have been in existence and "many"
bluebirders have tended one or more nestboxes.
Has anyone estimated how many individuals have been actively involved, how many nestboxes have been installed, and how many bluebirds have fledged from the nestboxes? If not, would someone take a wild stab at answering this question?
Thanks!
Pauline Tom
Mountain City (no mountains) TX

From: Keith & Sandy Kridler [mailto:txbluebirder"at"sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 8:46 AM
Subject: learning about House Sparrows

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas a cool 39*F warblers of all kinds are streaming into Northeast Texas ready to ride the next strong south wind on north. Elms, maples, and willows are in full bloom with a seed crop not far behind.

We tend to forget that House Sparrows are a colony nesting Weaver Finch.
Just because some of them will use nestboxes we seem to think that if we remove nestboxes that are not monitored that we will wipe out this species!
This is NOT going to happen as these birds WILL find a nesting site close by either in a building or they will happily nest in trees, bushes, shrubs or vine covered walls or trees. The urge to procreate will drive them to build a nest and select a mate (female House Sparrows may mate with 6-12 different males in as many minutes when they are getting ready to start laying eggs.)

Female House Sparrows can raise their young without the help or aid of a male House Sparrow once they are bred.

We often blame bird feeders and bird seed as to why we have so many House Sparrows when in reality 100 years ago NO ONE fed birds and House Sparrows were found in FAR higher numbers scratching through livestock manure, feeding along side chickens and eating out of the feed trough with livestock. Today most livestock is fed a finely ground grain mixture that the animals digest far better and the commercial livestock is mostly kept inside bird proof buildings.

In the past, flocks of thousands of House Sparrows fed on the fields of farmers and would do so again if and when we cease feeding wild birds. House Sparrows are just as happy to eat crab grass seeds as they are millet. Every fence row and weedy city lot will provide hundreds of species of weeds and seeds that sustain House Sparrows and the other small seed eating birds.

You can often read that House Sparrows exterminate native species. This is a myth. Yes they do kill some native cavity nesting species while competing for nesting sites but they seldom actually use natural cavities hammered out by woodpeckers. Worldwide House Sparrows are in decline. Compared to numbers of House Sparrows in the 1880s to 1940's House Sparrows have probably declined by 50% or more here in the USA.

During this same time frame the USA practically exterminated the entire forest system in the Eastern USA. According to a USDA yearbook from the state of Maryland their agriculture head of the state was begging the state to protect their virgin timber forest claiming that 69% of ALL of Maryland's forests had already been cut and this was in 1887. He predicted that there would not be a single stand of virgin timber left in the state within 20 years and he was right.

In 1887 in the state of Maryland there were more than 500 different brands of field fertilizer being used on crop lands and MOST of these contained ground bone meal from Bison Bones shipped in from the plains states. We seem to forget that our fore fathers completely stripped the vast forests of the USA and have only replanted a few of the many species that once existed in the forests.

We will plow and seed almost a billion acres of land this year to only 14 different species of plants. In 1887 the USA planted more than 230,000,000 acres of crops. The farmers harvested 1&1/2 Billion bushels of corn that year with mules and oxen pulling plows and harvesting the crops by hand.
They mostly used finely ground up bone meal for fertilizer and were importing bird guano for nitrogen.

When we read about native species in decline or becoming extinct we do NOT need to blame extinction on another species. I am just amazed that so many of our forest birds have been able to adapt to the changing forest structure and have adapted so well to the urban and suburban landscape.

There are pages and pages of info on controlling House Sparrows on Bluebird-l archives and lots of research and articles on the decline of House Sparrows on the web. KK

From: Tree Greenwood [mailto:doctree"at" crosslink.net]
Sent: Sunday, February 25, 2007 4:21 PM
Subject: Re: nestboxes in Britain (was "providing House Sparrow...")

On Tue 20 Feb 2007 at 08:07, "Keith Kridler"
<txbluebirder"at" sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> ... An article about companies in Britain going out and installing
> nestboxes to help save the House Sparrows.
> Notice in the photo that they use double cavity nestboxes for house
> sparrows. ...

Hi, Keith and everyone,

My wife's favorite cavity nesting birds are little blue critters that pounce on bugs on the ground. I enjoy them, too, but my favorite cavity nesting birds are obligate aerial insectivores: Martins, swallows and swifts.

Europe is more densely populated with humans than the US. Natural nesting sites, snags and hollow trees and such, were eliminated hundreds and even thousands of years ago. The US won't be as congested for quite a while. Migratory birds half way around the world adapted to humans in the middle ages, using suitable cavities in manmade structures.

Forests in most of Europe were cut for timber or fire wood long ago; long ago as in over a thousand years.
Wood-framed housing is rare. Masonry structures are the norm so birds in the Old World adapted. European birdhouses are often 'woodcrete' or concrete. See http://www.jacobijayne.co.uk/ShopOnline.php and notice their 'Brick boxes' which are actually blocks intended to replace existing bricks in new or old masonry walls.
Newer, better, more energy efficient construction has eliminated the nooks and crevices where migratory birds nested for hundreds to over a thousand years.

Worldwide, Swifts are in trouble. In the western hemisphere, Chimney Swifts (Chaetura pelagica) once lived in hollow snags but quickly adapted to nest in masonry chimneys and similar structures when European settlers built here. Modern metal and ceramic lined chimneys aren't suitable for nests and the populations of Chimney Swifts have dropped by half or more. A similar drop in numbers of Common Swifts (apus apus) was observed in Europe.

In the US, some are building Chimney Swift towers ( http://www.chimneyswifts.org/page19.html ) as artificial homes for our swifts. In the Old World, conservationists encourage changes in construction practices ( http://www.londons-swifts.org.uk/ ) to try to stabilize drops in populations of Common Swifts. We share knowledge. Starling Resistant Entry Holes (SREH) developed by Purple Martin landlords in Canada and the US have been adopted by United Kingdom landlords housing Common Swifts and House Martins.

Lots of similarities between the Old World and New.

Take care,

R J 'Tree' Greenwood
Catlett VA

PS: In the US, we call the product 'hypertufa' rather than woodcrete. Woodcrete mixes sawdust with cement.
Hypertufa is a mixture of one part Portland cement to one to two parts each of perlite and milled peat moss.
A half part of reinforcing fibers will add strength.
A greater percentage of cement is heavier but stronger.
Some hypertufa recipes include one part builders sand but it adds a lot in weight but very little strength.
Mix ingredients well and press onto and/or into a mold.
Keep it moist on the outside with plastic and/or misting and allow a long period to cure, a week or two.

I've made planters and fake rocks. I'll probably try a couple of birdhouses this year, just for fun. I'll use a wooden board wrapped with plastic wrap for the front, maybe molding the stuff around a piece of EMT as well as the board that I'll be able to slide it down to check and clean the cavity. If nothing else, it should make a great House Sparrow trap.

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith & Sandy Kridler [mailto:txbluebirder"at"sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2007 8:49 AM
Subject: Need help dating a Bluebird Trails Guide

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas
Bruce Burdett mentioned getting older and how many thousands of information packets he has sent out over the years and we all wonder if what we do has any lasting impact.

I got a call from our new secretary for our county agent. Seems she was looking through the old wildlife packet of information they copy when someone comes in looking for information and she found some of the original NABS bluebird information sheets dating back to Silver Springs Maryland.

She also found a copy of a copy of a 22 page BLUEBIRD TRAILS GUIDE published by Wisconsin Society for Ornithology Bulletin #137 it sold for 35 cents. The beautiful pen and ink drawing on the front is by an Alfred O. Holz. The bulletin was prepared by Mr. and Mrs. Paul W. Romig Artwork was from Bernard Chartier and A. O. Holz & Photography from Barbara Humphreys.

There are some really good information pages in this even though it is a little dated. Back then for you to register your trail you had to install at least 10 nestboxes on 80 acres but they preferred them on 160 acres and mounted no closer than 500 feet between nestboxes. You were supposed to install a sign on each nestbox: W. S. O. Bluebird Trail Erected by Wisconsin 4-H Clubs (then a box number.)

They mention a Miriam Bell from Toledo who had bluebird nesting on his clothes line pole, also that bluebirds were nesting in the GREEN BAY PRESS GAZETTE mail box.

Favorite food in Wisconsin at that time was Poke Berries, sumac, holly, dogwood and cedar berries.

To attract nuthatches, mount your nestboxes 12-20 feet from the ground on tree trunks in wooded areas.

Tufted Titmice-on tree trunks in wooded areas, 6 to 15 feet from the ground.

Chickadees- near wooded areas, 6 to 15 feet from the ground.

Red-headed woodpeckers-high on poles or dead trees.

Reports from these trails showed at that time that 15% of these boxes would attract Eastern Bluebirds, 40% of the boxes would be used by Tree Swallows.

Donald J. Hendrick, Science Teacher Tomahawk Junior High School, Tomahawk, Wisconsin wrote a page in this booklet titled Follow the Swallow.

Another page was: Rural Wildlife Project Potholes written by Harold Mathias Wisconsin Conservation Dept.

Another page was: Leadership by Clara Hussong Nature Columnist, and author of "Birds" and "Nature Walks" published by Golden Press.

"Life Along the Bluebird Trail" (a couple of pages) was prepared by Bernard Murray-Brown County Wisconsin 4-H agent and Mr. and Mrs. Paul Romig.

They end with a neat page; "Last Call for the Birds of Prey" it starts;

Hawks, owls, eagles and ospreys, magnificent birds of forest, field and fen unable to withstand the onslaught of guns, changing habitat and persistent pesticides are making a last stand.

These birds long considered the villains of the chicken coop are now recognized as valuable members of our society. Rodents, insects and undesirable fauna predominate in their diet.

More guns manned by irresponsible people in modern mobile transportation account for great numbers. Population pressures destroy needed habitat.
Non-degradable pesticides add the finishing touches.

Education of the "trigger happy" youth with his rifle, the wanton hunter who must bag anything that flies, the Legislator who creates the laws of protection and the Game Warden who should enforce the protection statutes is needed for survival of our birds of prey.

They have a couple of different check lists in the booklet. They only give detailed descriptions of House Sparrows, wrens, Bluebirds and Tree Swallows.

They mention using an extra wood block which that call a Starling/raccoon guard. They mention that without it Starlings will reach in a remove eggs or young birds.

Gotta go to work. Any help running the date of this down would be appreciated. OH this was in the 4-H section in our county agents drawer.
Keith Kridler

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