We have about 16 nest boxes scattered around our field. They were designed and built for bluebirds and indeed every year some bluebirds have occupied 2 or 3 boxes. The other boxes have proved attractive to house sparrows, tree swallows, and even chickadees. A couple of boxes serve as homes for field mice. That's OK but it is a little disconcerting to be cleaning out old nesting material and come up with a handful of squirming mouse.
Early today there was activity at one of the boxes and I could see two tree swallows trying to make a choice. An additional 3 or 4 tree swallows were fooling around on the hawk perch which you can see on the west side of rte 89 opposite the Boy Scout camp. They may have been confused about what all this house hunting was for. At any rate, it was a good sign of spring and the first sign of tree swallows here this season. BTW, a red tailed hawk has been using the perch almost every day since the snow disappeared. Happy hunting. Bill and Shirley McAneny, TBurg -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
