Tree Swallows, Nesting Naturally

 Woodpeckers do a huge favor to a lot of other birds when they chisel out their cavities. Red-headed, downy, hairy and red-bellied woodpeckers are the engineers, architects and contractors for most of the house-building. Flickers also excavate, but their slightly decurved bills are not quite as well-adapted to the task, so they'll often enlarge an existing cavity or choose a punkier dead tree to make their own. The huge cavities of pileated woodpeckers are a boon to wood ducks and great crested flycatchers.

These woodpeckers are called primary cavity nesters, meaning that they make their own holes. Great crested flycatchers and tree swallows are among the secondary cavity nesters who move in when the woodpeckers move out.

There were lots of these little blue beauties swirling around North Bend State Park, choosing the lower holes nearer the water for their nests.

Definitely the most confiding of cavity-nesting birds, tree swallows wait until the very last moment to leave, and grudgingly at that. When I'm checking nests, I'm sometimes able to lift an incubating tree swallow with my finger and count her eggs, then close the box again. You have to love a bird who stares you down and lets you do that. When I find a female bird incubating in a box, I usually let them alone until the next count, but sometimes I need a base count before the eggs hatch and have no choice but to intrude.

 It was lovely to see these birds nesting where they would naturally nest, in this Brigadoon for hole-nesters, safe from predators. Tree swallows are relatively recent colonists of southern Ohio and West Virginia, having expanded their range south quite a bit over the 30 years I've been monitoring nest boxes.

When we first moved to southeast Ohio in 1992, there was one spot in the county where we could see nesting swallows--a flooded embayment of the Ohio River. Now, they're everywhere, making new cocoa-brown and white babies like this one. In my boxes--sometimes two broods a season! And here, in these dead snags. Lovely to see.

Long may they nest at North Bend!

Making the Baby Bird Rounds

I had 21 bluebirds and 15 Carolina chickadees to keep alive, in weather like this: 48 degrees and raining nonstop. 

I hand-fed 18 of the bluebirds four times that day (four were too old to feed; I risked causing premature fledging), and after feeding them I left bug omelet on the roofs of their boxes and those of the chickadees, and to a bird each parent fed that stuff to its babies as soon as I was gone. The older babies got fed--I just crept up and put some live mealworms mixed with bug omelet on top of their box and the parents did the rest.

I'd just get back from rounds (some of the boxes are about five miles away from my house) and it would be time to cook up another couple of omelets and head out again. I was thankful for the bluebirds who'd gape for me right off the bat, like this little shaver. Oh, they were hungry!

                                                         photo by Liam Thompson

The Carolina chickadees were tricky. They're smarter than bluebirds, and they won't gape for just anybody who whistles at them the way young bluebirds will, so I had to leave food for the parents on their box roofs. It worked. The parents fed it to them.

I found one chickadee baby choking down an enormous green caterpillar. It was swallowing it just like a snake, lying on its belly, working that thing down its gullet, tossing its head back and forth as it forced the oversized item down. Amazing. You can see its tiny wings thrown out for leverage. There are nine in this nest. Thereby hangs another story for another time. Yes, that's my doing, too. Update: All nine of the chicks in the photo below are fledging as of 11 AM Thursday, May 26! Lots of chickadee-dee-deeing going on in the backyard right now, clown-lipped babies popping their heads out of the hole...what joy!

In any clutch, I find the runt (see it at the bottom) usually begs the most vigorously. I love runts.  They know they have some catching up to do. These are bluebirds, about Day 6.

 Here's a nest of 11-day-old bluebirds with their bug omelet. I use a bent dentist's forceps for feeding.  I had to force-feed about half the bluebirds since they wouldn't gape. The older they are, the less likely they are to gape, even if they're starving. They're suspicious of this big colorful ape with a forceps.

The tree swallows sat moping, hungry in the rain, but they ignored both bug omelet and live mealworms placed on their box tops. They'd just step aside as a mealworm would crawl by. Aerial insectivores are very tough to help, being hard-wired to take their food only on the wing.

Hang in there, little swallow. The rain will stop, sometime.

Luckily this pair had only eggs yet laid. Five, and they kept them warm through the cold spell.

It was a heck of a day. I gave up on accomplishing anything but pulling these baby birds through. I just stayed in my rain suit and tromped from box to box.

photo by Liam Thompson

But the rewards were immense--live, warm baby bluebirds and chickadees, who were 100% stronger and healthier at the end of that long, long day than they were at its start. They'd all have died if I hadn't made the effort, and knowing that made it all worthwhile.

photo by Liam Thompson

My photographer was pleased, too.

monkeycam photo by Liam Thompson

Bob's Bluebirds

It is a rare privilege to be shown a place that is special to someone. Visiting Bob Niebuhr's mountain bluebird trail not far from Great Falls, Montana, I think we may have seen the most beautiful bluebird box trail on the planet.

The Man himself, author of beauty and grace, written on the land in bluebirds fledged from his boxes.
A caravan of cars snaked from the Mountain Bluebird Trails conference site to Bob's turf, and we hopped out to check boxes along the way. And to breathe. Oh, the air was so sweet and cool.


Mountain bluebirds are bigger than either western or eastern bluebirds, and they often lay clutches of six pale blue eggs. Being broad of shoulder, they need an entry hole that's 1/8" bigger than their smaller relatives, too.

Some three-day-old mountain bluebirds.


Mountain bluebird babies are lovely, smoky brown and even-colored, unlike our dappled gray eastern bluebird babies. These are about 13 days old.

I loved seeing my first mountain bluebird babies, but I was blown away by their surroundings. What heaven it would be to have an excuse to drive Bob's route once every week.

We compared notes on development and predator deterrents. The Science Chimp always loves to talk shop with other bluebird box landlords.

And of course, she had to get her nose into every box.

As did Science Chimp Junior (this was taken in North Dakota.)

Everywhere on Bob's trail, wildflowers nodded in the breeze. This was the finest stand of prairie smoke I'd ever found. A few lupines add their blue.

Not sure what this is. It looks a lot like a Gaura I planted in my garden this year, but it's much denser and more compact. Yoo-hoo, Caroline from South Dakota?

A natural garden.

Ever dream of having that Montana ranch, brushing out a brood mare's tail, and riding out each morning to watch the sun ascend over the rolling hills?

Me, too.

Tree swallows were gettin' busy, too, enjoying Bob's lodgings.



Mountain bluebirds hovered and dove on grasshoppers.

Heavenly, the only word for their blue. Well, maybe celestial. Same meaning.

Wonder if anyone would pay me to live out here and run these boxes when Bob got tired of it? No, he already has good volunteers who help. Rats. And he doesn't show any signs of getting tired of it.

I'd do it for nothing, anyway.

A northern checkerspot stops in its meadowbouncing.

More prairie smoke.

A shy larkspur

and some lupines.

A neighbor brings two little grandsons, still in their jammies, on his four-wheeler, to chat with Bob, who seems to know everyone. Liam looks on in envy.

Bill of the Birds gazes out over the expanse.
I try not to imagine this place in the dead of winter

preferring summer meadows and birdsong to howling blizzards.

And so it will stay in my memory, always June, with the song of warbling vireos

and lonely barns against the sky

and Bob fixing a loose roof on a bluebird box

sending thousands of new bluebirds out into the Montana skies

making the world a more beautiful place with every mile he drives.

I salute you, Bob Niebuhr, and all those who work for bluebirds. Thank you for bringing our little family to Montana, to find ancient runes and hunker down in tipi rings, to float down the Missouri River. You've made a place in our hearts that we will always come back to. Thank you for all you do to bring beauty to the land. You are appreciated.

last two photos: Bill Thompson III