natural chicago
HUMANS CAN
Help Bluebirds Thrive by Sheryl DeVore
I
n the mid-19th century, Henry David Thoreau hung a wooden box in a poplar tree, hoping a pair of bluebirds would nest. They did, inspiring his poem The Bluebirds. Were he alive today, Thoreau would have likely been happy to learn that bluebirds are nesting in many manmade boxes all over the country, including in the Chicago region. Hundreds of volunteers in Chicago and the suburbs are tending to nest boxes set up to give these songbirds a place to raise their young. In 2016, Jeff Wade erected a bluebird box at the West Ridge Nature Park, in Chicago. “Five days after I put up the box, bluebirds were building a nest in there,” recalls Wade. They raised three young that year. Since then, Wade has been checking the box at least weekly, spring through summer, and reporting his data to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (NestWatch.org). Three kinds of bluebirds—western, mountain and eastern— are native to North America. Those in the Chicago region are eastern bluebirds, which are about six-to-eight inches long. Males have blue backs and heads, red breasts and white bellies. Females have more subdued colors. Bluebirds can be easily distinguished from the more gregarious blue jays that have white and blue bodies with crests on their heads. Eastern bluebird populations drastically declined in the early 20th century for several reasons, including the introduction of European starlings and house sparrows to the U.S. from Europe. These nonnative birds began usurping bluebirds’ natural tree cavities in which they nested and then used the cavities to raise their own young. In the 1960s and 1970s, humans began building nest boxes designed to keep the starlings out and give the bluebirds a chance to raise their young. They set up bluebird trails, a line of nest boxes in suitable habitat, typically an open field near scattered trees. The North American Bluebird Society (NABluebirdSociety.org) formed in 1978. The group shares information with bluebird monitors on ways to deter predators and nonnative nesters, among other techniques, to ensure successful nesting of bluebirds. Bluebird numbers have increased since then. As long as people continue to monitor and erect bluebird boxes, their population should remain stable, according to the Cornell Lab. Their recent report shows that in the northeastern region of the U.S., which includes Chicago and other parts of Illinois, monitors reported 4,580 bluebird nests, with nearly all producing three to four young in one season. In Lake County alone in 2019, volunteers monitored 637 40
Chicago
NAChicago.com
Male eastern bluebird at The Preserve at Oak Meadows Golf Course, in Addison. boxes with 400 young fledged, meaning they were able to leave the nest and fend for themselves, according to Jack Nowak, of Grayslake, who has been monitoring bluebird trails for about 15 years. His wife Pat helps him check 20 boxes at Brae Loch Golf Club, in Grayslake. Golf courses and cemeteries, as well as nature preserves with suitable habitat, have proven good spots to erect bluebird boxes. Wade, who has always loved birds, said he won a bluebird box during a McHenry County Audubon Society outing, but he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. He wondered if he could find a place close to his Chicago home to erect and monitor it. He found it at West Ridge Natural Area, 5601 N. Western Avenue, in Chicago, established by the Chicago Park District (ChicagoParkDistrict.com), in 2015 on 21 acres within the Rosehill Cemetery.
