14 July 2007 - Delaware Wildlife Area (DWA) and More - Tuttle

E-mail & photos from Dick Tuttle:

Hello Everyone,

I have monitored the nest boxes at the DWA five times since my last report of 27 May 2007. Here is a summation of events since then.

The Panhandle Road Grid - Twenty-five nest boxes are evenly spaced in rows at 25 yards apart for nesting Tree Swallows. Two additional boxes are mounted in front of the eagle nest viewing lot.

The Leonardsburg Road Grid is five rows of five nest boxes each.

All 52 nest boxes have been active with nests and eggs this season and it looks like all but one box will fledge young. At this date, 46 nests have produced 213 Tree Swallows for an average of 4.63 fledglings per nest. Four nests remain active with 13 swallow nestlings.

One nest box in the Panhandle Grid has raised two Eastern Bluebird families of five and three fledglings, respectively. Bluebirds now occupy a nest box with eggs in the roadside row of boxes at the Leonardsburg Road Grid. They use the electric wires to hunt insects from the road and berm.

During the 2006 season, one of four grid nest boxes raised two broods of Tree Swallows, a rate unheard of in the scientific literature.

This year, only one nest box houses a second brood of swallows. I blame a cold spring for a late start to the swallows' egg-laying period and drought-like conditions afterward for this year's drop in productivity.

The Green Tree Marsh - This season, the marsh's nest boxes raised three families of Tree Swallows (11 fledglings) and two families of House Wrens (12 fledglings). Unfortunately, this wooded wetland is no longer home for 15 nest boxes offered to Prothonotary Warblers. I removed the boxes from their T-posts on July 8, and I used my T-post puller to remove posts on July 14.

Unfortunately, eggs were laid in two prothonotary nests this season but disappeared, most likely, do to the actions of House Wrens. I conclude that after three years, and after five nest attempts by Prothonotaries laying eggs, and after only one family fledged in 2005, that a "sink population" exists in this otherwise, splendid habitat.

Prothonotaries have been a common sight in this marsh and I conclude that they do not need my offerings. Natural cavities are common, having been whittled by Redheaded Woodpeckers in dead cottonwood trees. I will miss my visits to this unique world but I look forward to applying my energy as I expand my effort for warblers along the creek and lake shoreline at Alum Creek. Propelling my canoe is much easier than wading over submerged tree limbs in deep water, etc. The physical effort would be worth it if I could count fledgling warblers, but for the last two seasons, that has not happened.

I have also removed nine of ten nest boxes from the Kilbourne Swamp north of Alum Creek Osprey Platform No. One. The swamp boxes have produced one family of six swallows and an equal yield of wrens. The nest box left standing holds six wren nestlings.

The Alum Creek Nest Jar Project was a success after three of 20 nest jars at ten locations produced two families of Prothonotary Warblers (three and five fledglings) and one family of five Tree Swallows. I used a canoe to monitor this "water trail." I look forward to expanding this project for the 2008 season.

Conserve on, Dick Tuttle