Road Killed Bluebirds

Subj: road killed bluebird survey
Date: 8/20/99 8:42:55 PM Central Daylight Time
From: kridler"at"1Starnet.com (Keith & Sandy Kridler)
Sender: owner-BLUEBIRD-L"at"cornell.edu
Reply-to: kridler"at"1Starnet.com (Keith & Sandy Kridler)
To: BLUEBIRD-L"at"cornell.edu (BLUEBIRD-L)

Keith Kridler Northeast Texas
Highways are murderous to many types of wildlife but it does depend on the species and their habits. Yes cardinals & mockingbirds often are seen killed during nesting season because they are very territorial at this time and also because they often will fly through bushes instead of gaining height and seem to prefer an altitude of about 4-6' while chasing off rivals or on a feeding mission. Thus they often try to take up the same space as cars do. Eastern Bluebirds will feed from a perch often dropping straight down and then returning to a height to "tenderize" the catch before dropping to the nestbox. They often fly in the 20-30' altitude area while going longer distances with food in areas near cars. Although territorial their fights often occur at the box or in neighboring trees and usually are more
of a tumble than the long high speed chase scenes of cardinals.

Now the common sense kicks in when locating nestboxes along highways. Interstates have a 45 mile per hour minimum speed limit in most states. I wouldn't place boxes here but often a slow speed access road will run with the interstate and these would be safe for the monitor to use. I prefer to use slow pot hole infested county roads with a 40 mile per hour speed limit. I still prefer to pull off the road and into someone's driveway and place a box on their property and share with them the joys of bluebirding. You now have an easily checked box for your trail & you often have someone driving by several times a day to do a visual check for you and the potential for new bluebirders. You can leave the highway at a safe speed without the worry of getting stuck in wet bar ditches.
Highway monitors MUST be careful! Never open the car door into the highway! Never slow or stop in the road without knowing what is coming from behind. Never place boxes near blind corners or over the crest of a steep hill. Never take children to visit a bluebird trail along a busy highway, ETC ETC...

By facing nestboxes away from the road or at least with the road you will minimize any losses as the young leave on that first flight which is often low and a straight line with no thought but sheer panic on the young birds part. While riding in a car with a driver speeding excessively we did hit a bluebird along my trail. In 20 years of 100's of roadside bluebird nestboxes this is the only one I have ever been involved with killing while in a car, if others will e-mail me privately about hitting bluebirds while in a car then I will post to the list the number of "road kills" per bluebirder average and not reveal my sources!!!! Also if you have found dead bluebirds by the road or on the road.KK

Subj: road killed bluebirds/poets corner
Date: 8/22/99 9:16:29 AM Central Daylight Time
From: kridler"at"1Starnet.com (Keith & Sandy Kridler)
Sender: owner-BLUEBIRD-L"at"cornell.edu
Reply-to: kridler"at"1Starnet.com (Keith & Sandy Kridler)
To: BLUEBIRD-L"at"cornell.edu (BLUEBIRD-L)

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas
road killed: I still need reports if any of you have been in a vehicle that struck a bluebird, have had anyone tell you that they hit a bluebird, or found a dead bluebird on or by the road. I am going to have to assume that you have never seen or heard of a bluebird killed by a road unless you send me a private post. I would prefer to receive a post with no or negative rather than "assuming" this is true. I would like reports from Minn. Fl. N &S Carolina, Calif. Ohio Neb. MA and the other states in-between. Some are saying they have never hit a bluebird but going on to list some of the birds they remember hitting which is interesting.

Poets corner: Unless things change after my begging for reports "road kills" will be right down at the bottom of the list of killers with lightning. Since things are slow on the list..... During the late 60's I knew of every bluebird nest within 5 or 6 miles of my house. Most were in old woodpecker holes (red belied/yellow shafted flicker) 10-35' high. One dead snag was a mile from our house with a small cluster of tall living trees on a small knoll just off the road. Scattered natural rocks (iron ore) among the trees and & rusty nails and a shallow rock cistern told me this was all that was left after termites were through with someone's dream home of the 1880's. (Fire would have left bits of charcoal & have scorched a side of the trees.)

I road by this spot every day on the school bus watching the bluebirds twice a day, after a severe spring storm the snag was flat on the ground with the bluebirds in mourning. That week I took one of my "reject" (the board split) redwood boxes with two brass hinges and a brass roof latch and nailed it to a tall 10" diameter hickory tree (I didn't know any better) on the east side of the trunk facing away from the road. Of course the bluebirds built a nest in just a few days, three weeks later after a terrific electrical storm I saw from the bus that the box was gone. The tree took a massive bolt of lighting and it went down the east side of the tree stripping off the bark and leaving the box a mass of splinters, nesting material, feathers and nails. I saved the hinges but this is how my very first "bluebird trail" birdhouse effort turned out! KK

Subj: great day/send more road kills
Date: 8/23/99 8:05:29 PM Central Daylight Time
From: kridler"at"1Starnet.com (Keith & Sandy Kridler)
Sender: owner-BLUEBIRD-L"at"cornell.edu
Reply-to: kridler"at"1Starnet.com (Keith & Sandy Kridler)
To: BLUEBIRD-L"at"cornell.edu (BLUEBIRD-L)

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas
What a neat day! Saw the first road runner of the summer, and like Linda Violeta the road kill survey has made me look at driving with "new eyes." I noticed I hit the brakes today when a male bluebird dropped to the road to catch an insect and again when a young EABL simply flew over the truck at a safe height. I probably do this without thinking but was conscience of the effort.

Back to the road kill survey. 1st I need more from all over. You are doing good and I love the stories some of you are sending (why haven't some of these been shared with the list??? They are great! I want to laugh out loud at some and cry with others.) I was going to thank you all individually but got too busy so a very big THANK YOU to you early reporters!!! A couple of tidbits so far only one other person so far has hit a bluebird while driving, way back in 1963 after borrowing "dad's" car to go job hunting they found one male EABL in the engine grill, although they had nest boxes up it took 32 years to see another nest in their yard!!! Ouch... Two bluebirds found on the roads had leg bands both found by their banders. Cardinals and Mockingbirds are NOT the most killed birds by cars,(gonna make you wait for the big losers) up to 13 identified species and climbing (very few have actually reported other birds killed so this could have been a really big number!) Really not sure how to list "little bitty brown birds" and other unknowns that have been struck.

So far Ohio leads in reporters (included Joe Huber in Ohio even though he is in Florida now since his trail was in his home state) New York and California are tied for second. I would like for everyone to report who hasn't already. I cherish all the notes and stories you add! But if you just want to make a report then I would like the state and area (i.e. NE, NW, Se SW) whether you have ever hit or heard about anyone hitting a bluebird, whether you have ever seen a dead one along a road. And also other species of birds you have struck or been in a car that struck other birds. You can make it simple by simply replying to author and then yes or no to those few questions! If you have never posted anything to the list before make a note of that also! We really do want to hear from all of you! Special thanks to all,,, Keith Kridler Ps does anyone have the total number of current subscribers to the list now?

Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 14:24:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kerry Sweet ksweet3450"at"yahoo.com
Subject: Backyard Male Bluebird has been killed
To: Bluebird Messages bluebird-l"at"cornell.edu

Hi all,

The Eastern Bluebirds (EABL) in my yard have always sit on the fence line in front of my house. At times this is a busy back road and the traffic goes pretty fast.

This Sunday morning I found a male EABL in the road that had been hit by a car.

The pair of EABL in my yard have 5 nineteen day old babies that have fledged only Friday.

I feed them mealworms and call them with a whistle, they both would come and gobble a few down then take some to their babies.

They have their friendly House Finch fans that are always flying with them. I think the female finch just adored the male bluebird ... He was a beauty.

I went and put out some mealworms and gave my whistle and here she come the female EABL alone.

She gobbled down a few mealworms then stuffed her beak with 4 or 5 and flew off. She made the trip several times alone.

I knew it was the backyard EABL because he made it a habit of using the road to kill his insects.

I also found in the road only about 3 or 4 feet from the EABL a little female finch that had been hit and killed. I figure it was one of his faithful followers he had so many.

I moved them out of the road and could tell they had not been dead very long and both had probably been hit at the same time.

I hope the female does OK with the babies and I will put out extra mealworms for her. I think she will miss her mate they fledged 16 babies this year from the backyard nestbox.

I know I will miss him.
Kerry in NE corner of Okla.

From: "Gary Springer" springer"at"alltel.net
To: "BLUEBIRD-L" BLUEBIRD-L"at"cornell.edu
Cc: "Gary Springer" springer"at"alltel.net
Subject: All there is to know about the Bluebird's diet
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 22:01:12 -0500

Gary Springer Carnesville, GA January 28, 2002

Last fall a friend found a red-headed woodpecker on the road. It had just been killed and he picked it up and brought it to me.

I cut its crop open to see what it had eaten.

I was surprised to see it had only eaten one insect but had a crop full of small berry seeds. I'm almost certain the seeds are of berries because the contents of the crop were purple and the seeds looked like elderberry seeds. .

Today I stepped out of my truck at a busy convenience store and laying on the ground only 15 feet in front of the door to the store was a freshly killed bright blue male eastern bluebird.

Apparently it had been hit by a car and hung on the grill until someone pulled it off their car in front of the store.

I opened its crop and found it had eaten one small grasshopper, one very small beetle about an eighth of an inch long, and again, several berries.

Terry Whitworth has been collecting nests from amateurs for his study on parasitic insects in nests.

It seems a lot of valuable information could also be learned from a similar collection by a biologist of the contents of the crops of dead song birds submitted by amateurs. The crop can be very easily removed, sliced open and the contents and crop dried for storage and study for many years.

It's always saddening to find a dead songbird whether killed by a predator, from striking a window pane, a collision with a car, found dead in a nest box or any other circumstances.

It's so simple to remove the crop that it seems if this work isn't being done, not only is it sad to see the dead bird, but as sad that valuable information inside that bird is being lost, especially in the case of birds with declining populations.

Gary Springer

From: "Keith & Sandy Kridler" kridler"at"1starnet.com
To: "BLUEBIRD-L" BLUEBIRD-L"at"cornell.edu
Subject: bluebird road kill
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 08:01:31 -0600

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas

I found a male bluebird killed on east 1 st going to work yesterday morning. I stopped and it was still very fresh but no leg bands. A female BB was sitting on a fence across the road watching me pick it up. It was just about 1 mile from the courthouse and about 1 mile from my house as I live two miles out from the courthouse & then three blocks south of 1 st street.

I keep thinking about nestbox spacing and "my trail" boxes. This is really a "loaded question" I don't really know how to answer! OK here is an example of nestboxes in my area of town. I drive four blocks to get to 1 st and six pairs of eastern bluebirds nested in eight different nestboxes of mine. At Dessie and 1 st across from the elementary school Annie Sims the Clarks have up three bluebird boxes in their yard and had a pair all summer. Marxson's daughter has three boxes one block north of 1 st. behind the school and there were three pairs of bluebirds using boxes in three yards around the school last year. This gets you almost down to 1st and Denman where I found the dead bluebird male.

On the south is Mr. Gaddis with three bluebird boxes on his west yard fence and three or four boxes behind the house in and around his garden. It was probably his bird but it could be from the pair nesting three times last year on 3rd and Denman actually one block to the north. (They skipped 2nd street in our town.) Or it could be Gaddis neighbor to the west as they have a "pod" of 9 "bluebird" nestboxes, four wood duck pairs nesting with Purple Martins, chickadees and titmice last year.

One block south of this "Pod" of boxes another man has 4 bluebird nestboxes around his garden. Heading back into town there were more Martin/sparrow houses and more "bluebird" nestboxes until you get within 1 block of the courthouse and again I start my "in town" trail after this 2 mile "skip" in nestboxes! I had bluebirds nesting or one of the other nestbox installers had bluebirds in three different nestboxes within 5 blocks of the courthouse and they have a large active Purple Martin colony on the square with House Sparrows and Starlings nesting in the ends of all of the traffic light horizontal "cavities".... I know I forgot Mr. Dunns nestboxes and he is Katy corner to Mr. Gaddis and I only noted the boxes I know of in peoples yards within ONE block of 1 st street.... I worked just beyond the square yesterday and we counted bluebirds at seven different locations between the courthouse and home yesterday at noon. The female at Mr. Gaddis already had another mate by noon yesterday or another pair was sitting on the fence there! Keith Kridler

Road Killed Bluebirds

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