Latest on CERCA's Swallow Project
News on CERCA's Tree Swallow Enhancement Project
As reported earlier in the "Letters from the Chair" and on our website, our member Wes Heinrichs volunteered again to construct more bird boxes over the last winter to add to the already more than one hundred placed strategically throughout the estuary. This was triggered by the excellent 2019 results showing a steadily climbing number of successful nest box occupancy with very few dead fledglings and un-hatched eggs found during the 2019 fall box monitoring and cleaning.
Murray from Dogwood Lumber graciously donated the material -yellow cedar- boards for the boxes and Wes did a marvellous job constructing prime housing facilities for the birds which hopefully will appreciate his effort.
Beate skillfully painted the house numbers for the swallows to find their homes again after signing the rental agreement. We only hope they can count to 99 (of the boxes placed along the open-air classroom nature trail)!
Our -almost by now- standard team Wes Heinrichs, Steve Kirley, John Shaw and I met on the 21st of February on a sunny morning to hang the new boxes along the fence lining the meadow in front of the platform at the nature trail. Beforehand we had contacted of course the property owners living in the heritage house opposite the trail kiosk asking for permission for using their fence posts to support the boxes. They proved to be delighted to be part of the project.
Not so easy for us old-timers to climb the fence to access the meadow and to transport the 23 boxes across a muddy salt marsh runnel.
As an "expert team" we finished the job efficiently, without getting sucked up by the mud (Steve almost lost one of his gum boots in a treacherous muddy ditch deviously hidden by grass). There are many such traps typical for salt marsh habitat as anyone can attest to who has travelled across a salt marsh overgrown with vegetation. It took us less than two hours to hang the new boxes. Let's see in fall whether some of the returning swallows have found and liked them. Again, like in the past years we expect the migratory birds to arrive earlier than usual due to the third mild winter in a row. Climate change is felt at our doorstep.