Date: 9/20/26 5:35 pm From: Ramsey, Lawrence William <lwr...> Subject: 2025 nest box results
Used the poor weather today to complete my 2016 Bluebird house summary and submit result to the PA Bluebird Society site. This last winter I reduced the active bluebird houses from 39 to 24 mostly in an effort to see less house wren use by increasing distance from trees & brush but, admittedly, it was getting harder to keep up a 3 or 4 day pace with that many.
Nesting results at our Penns Vally location year were not bad given the cold late April and May which accounted for the EABL nest failures and some losses before fledging. Of the 24 Bluebird trail houses 21 were used. Seven houses hosted two attempts and one three attempts. Below are the results for Eastern Bluebirds (EABL), Tree Swallows (TRES) and Northern House Wrens (HOWR).
Eastern Bluebirds
* 7 Nesting attempts, 47 eggs, 26 nestlings and 44 fledglings
* 2 nest failures
* Found young hognose snake resting after dinning on recently hatched chicks
We are always happy to see the house used by a Bluebird that is about 40 ft from our patio and provides entertainment during breakfast and dinner when it happens. This year that house had a fairly late start with the first EABL egg on June 9. The clutch size was four and all hatched a fledged. We knew the hatch date and expected a fledging date of July 14 and so I placed a camera nearby and set it in a mode that detected motion tuned for the speed of an incoming adult and hopefully for an outgoing fledgling. The latter eluded me (again) but the near constant feeding the day before fledging (July 12) and fledging (July 13) yielded some decent photos and four are attached to the e-mail. The first two pics are July 12 and illustrate the frantic feeding behavior where the adults are at the nest box simultaneously as does the 3rd pic on July 13. The last pic was near the last and probably an hour before fledging was complete. We did see this family around the yard numerous times for about 3 weeks.
