“We didn’t check the boxes as often this year as we did in past years, so the numbers are more approximate. There were 5 successful bluebird broods nesting in our 13 boxes, each yielding ~4 fledglings. This is the average over the last 14 years and similar to last year, but only half of the peak of 10. We had 2 successful chickadee broods; this number is typical and the same as last year. There were 6 successful house wren broods, which is an increase over the last few years, but well below the high of 15. As the house wrens increase, there will be more competition for the boxes and perhaps unsuccessful bluebird and chickadee nests.
We didn’t see the flying squirrels this year, we’re sorry to report.
We think that the red-tailed hawks moved their nest again as we didn’t see any activity at the old nest or the newer one we described last year. There was an active nest overlooking the UR tennis courts.”
-Sheryl Gracewski