Updates from 2026

il y a 1 jour

2 min de lecture

I had intended to stop monitoring my ~150 nest boxes because it is a lot of work on my own. However, Amanda decided to take over, so we have some data. We limited our efforts to monitoring the nests without banding the nestlings. We also limited our trapping effort to bluebirds that were banded as chicks in previous years, but we did not try to capture and band new individuals that we saw unbanded. Even then, Amanda was not able to always monitor as planned and I was away for 1.5 month of the season, so we do not have a complete and accurate set of data. For example, for some nests, we cannot conclude whether chicks fledged or were depredated.

Janet and her long-time partner were not back for a 6th nesting season.
We had more brown chicks this year, all from the same grandpa!
One of the females who had a clutch of 7 last year did it again this year. Unfortunately, in all three of her clutches, fertility was low, and she only managed to raise 3 chicks in total.
We found more bluebird nests full of seeds this season. We will dissect some nests to see how prevalent this switch from insects to berries is.

Here is the summary for this year, relative to previous years:

First egg date:

2026: March 11 (another record)

2025: March 20

2024: March 12 (the earliest I ever recorded)

2023: March 14

2022: March 19

2021: March 28

Last Fledging date:

2026: Sep. 13

2025: Aug. 23

2024: Sep. 14 (it sure gets late when going for a 4th brood!)