Friends of the Bluebirds hold blitz-build

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This article was published 27/01/2024 (600 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Using precise measurements down to the square inch, half a dozen homebuilders completed 25 new homes in one night.

The construction project will benefit residents expected to arrive in southwestern Manitoba in the spring, spend the summer raising a family, and head south again before winter.

Six members of Brandon’s Seniors for Seniors Co-op Inc. are building nest boxes for mountain and eastern bluebirds as well as tree swallows, in support of the non-profit organization Friends of the Bluebirds.

George Michniewicz was one of the six who brought his cordless drill, nails and deck screws for bird box assembly.

“I cannot wait for the first family to come and start nesting,” Michniewicz said. “And then to watch them through binoculars, and go to see the eggs and then count the eggs. I cannot wait. It’s like my grandkids.”

Michniewicz is one of about 115 members of the Friends of the Bluebirds who volunteer to check on the nest boxes that have been placed on fence posts in different locations in southwestern Manitoba, said Phil Weiss, chairman of the organization.

“We are caretakers of well over 2,000 artificial nesting boxes that are out on landowners’ fence lines with their support and excellent co-operation from the farmers who’ve agreed to let us put the boxes up on pasture and grassland,” said Weiss.

The non-profit Friends of the Bluebirds organization is one of 61 affiliates in North America and one of only six in Canada.

It was started in 1975 to honour the life and work of Brandon-born John Lane, who was a self-taught ornithologist. Lane started the Brandon Junior Bird Club and the “Bluebird Line,” which is the line of birdhouses stretching from Sidney to Saskatchewan.

Lane also received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Brandon University, a Manitoba Good Citizenship Award and was made a life member of the Manitoba Naturalists Society just before his death in 1975.

Weiss said it’s important to continue with Lane’s work, which includes providing safe and secure places for the neo-tropical birds — those that winter in warmer climates — to raise their families when they summer in Manitoba.

“About half our club members look after the lines and we monitor the boxes about five or six times during the summer — right from occupancy in the spring to when they start building their nest and laying eggs. They also clean them out at the end of the summer.”

The eastern and mountain bluebird lay about five blue eggs, while the tree swallow, also referred to as a songbird, can lay up to seven white eggs.

“We record all the data, including the number of eggs. We also calculate and count the number of fledglings (birds with feathers but that can’t yet fly). But unfortunately, there’s occasionally some mortality,” Weiss said.

The worst neo-tropical bird mortality Weiss said he can remember happened in December 2020, when thousands of birds died from starvation and hypothermia during a cold snap in the usually warm southwestern United States.

That had a direct affect in the low number of birds that came to southwestern Manitoba the following spring, but Weiss said they are slowing coming back.

“Our numbers are holding their own,” Weiss said. “When all of our club members finished doing what they’re doing and counting the birds that came out of the boxes, I think there are numbers out there of around 12,000 to 14,000 birds.”

So, to ensure the birds have a proper place to live and raise their brood, it’s necessary to replace some of the old nest boxes that are weather-beaten and worn out.

And that is why Weiss asked Brandon’s Lloyd McCabe, a member of Seniors for Seniors, for help. McCabe organized the blitz-build.

“The design is actually perfect,” McCabe said as he showed off a finished nest box. “We’re using birch plywood. There’s the hole in front with side panels and the front panel is hinged so it can be opened up, making it easy for the volunteer to check inside. And there’s a rain, or sun cap, too.”

If not for the nest boxes, the birds would do what they do naturally — build a nest in a dead tree. They would select a hole made by a woodpecker or find a space between two branches in the crotch of a tree.

But those locations put them at risk to predators, like raccoons that can climb and reach inside the nest. And by having the manmade nest boxes placed on farmland fence posts, they have the advantage of living close to their food source.

For bluebirds it’s grubs and grasshoppers, while tree swallows eat insects.

As Brian Manns drills a nail into the side of a nest box under construction, he said his wife is a member of the Friends of the Bluebirds. He’s gone with her to check on the birds and the boxes and said he has noticed a change in their environment.

“I’ll tell you what, we’re getting less and less birds each year because of the habitat. It could be because people are breaking up all the pastureland and putting it into grain. We need pasture,” said Manns.

Some of the low numbers of songbirds on a global scale are related to habitat loss, said Weiss.

“But we try our best to maintain those populations, because it’s so important to see the birds. And they’re part of our ecosystem.

“It’s protecting that valuable biodiversity that we cherish, and they’re part of the heritage of this great country, so we keep trucking along,” Weiss said.

There are two other local organizations that are helping to build the nest boxes — the Men’s Shed in Minnedosa and Brandon’s Westbran training centre.

The boxes made by six men at Seniors for Seniors will have that organization’s logo, and year of construction, wood-burned on the top.

And once the new hundred or so nest boxes are complete, each will be numbered and in the spring will be affixed to fence posts throughout southwestern Manitoba.

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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