Friday, 16 April 2021

Re: [cobirds] {Bluebird-Babble} Bluebird dearth

Okay, just to keep us humble, El Paso county just got inundated with mountain bluebirds in this last snow storm.  At Clear Spring ranch, I had over forty, and I ran into someone who saw a like number next to Squirrel Creek Reservoir.  STUNNING. 
Happy Birding! 


On Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 9:30 AM David Suddjian <dsuddjian@gmail.com> wrote:
Some more anecdotal contributions regarding Mountain Bluebird numbers...

At Ken Caryl Valley in Jefferson Co I have so far had just two encounters with Mountain Bluebird this season, where it occurs as a regular migrant and there are several breeding pairs. Compared to the past 3 years, this is only 15-25% of the frequency detection for the same time period. I've checked some of the spots that often have nesting pairs, but none were present on those checks.

I visited South Park in Park County on Apr 13, driving and birding for about 7 hours through prime Mountain Bluebird habitat. I tallied 19 Mountain Bluebirds through the day, mostly as singles, well distributed but considerably less in number than expected based on past visits similarly timed in April. Compared to my own observations on other visits in the 2nd week of April, the numbers of Mountains were about 25-30% of what I tallied in prior years.

David Suddjian
Ken Caryl Valley
Littleton, CO






On Tue, Apr 13, 2021 at 8:54 PM Curtis Frankenfeld <curtis.frankenfeld@gmail.com> wrote:
I am involved with Bluebirds routes on many Douglas County open spaces.  We've been out preparing the routes for the upcoming breeding season.  It does not feel like we are seeing as many Bluebirds as past years.  

I went out to ebird and pulled bar chart data for this year and the past two for comparison.  The scope of this data pull is all of Colorado for the years noted.  It looks like there are seeing fewer Bluebird species reported to ebird in Colorado in 2021.  

2021 to date

2020

2019

I went out to ebird again and pulled bar chart data for Douglas County alone for these years as above.  The scope of this data pull is Douglas County, Colorado for the years noted.  As with the state-wide data, it looks like we are seeing fewer Bluebird species reported to ebird in Douglas County, Colorado in 2021.  

2021 to date

2020

2019

This relative frequency data helps us understand that there is a gross difference year-over-year.  I can pull the absolute numbers and effort data from ebird once the data for March is available to download.  Certainly something that we need to watch over the next 6-8 weeks of the normal breeding period.  

Curt Frankenfeld  



On Apr 11, 2021, at 9:14 AM, rebecca...@gmail.com <rebeccallaroche@gmail.com> wrote:

CoBirders

On the outskirts of the box canyon where I live, in the early fall and early spring, there has been a flock of more than a dozen Western Bluebirds (at least for the past two years).  Last summer, we had two breeding pairs. This spring, there is but one, single bird.  I keep hoping that more will arrive, but I'm starting to lose that hope. 

Rebecca Laroche
Southern Colorado Springs







On Friday, April 9, 2021 at 12:34:41 PM UTC-6 5mcorp wrote:
Cobirders -

I'm still "wading" through the article referenced below about the massive bird die-off that occurred last fall during migration amd which was attributed for the most part  to the two largest recorded fires ion Colorado;  EVER!

I feel pretty confident when I conjecture that the dearth of bluebirds during this spring's migration may be attributed to the the die-off attributed to last fall's two major forest fires.  In other words, ther population pf bluiebiords was hot severely by those fires, and there is not the "normal" number of those birds available to comprise a "norrmal" spring migration he on Colprado's Fronmt Ranmge.re 

                 Mass Bird Die-Off Linked to Wildfires and Toxic Gases

                               https://eos.org/research-spotlights/mass-bird-die-off-linked-to-wildfires-and-toxic-gases


Bill Miller

Fort Collins




On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 8:51 AM Barbara Spagnuolo <BSpag...@crgov.com> wrote:

I can report, although informally, that I did not hear or see many bluebirds while I visited various nest boxes around Castle Rock for box maintenance & repair this season. In fact, despite visiting 14 different sites between the first week of March and yesterday (always on calm sunny days), I heard/saw bluebirds only twice. That is definitely very low compared to previous years. But I can also report more specifically that we found only 3 complete nests and 5 incomplete nests in our 190 nest boxes last week during the first week of monitoring, compared to 5 complete nests and almost a dozen incomplete nests during the first week of monitoring in 2020. We too have a very detailed monitoring program with extensive data keeping since 2007, so we will have a good opportunity for data comparison at the end of the season.

-Barbara Spagnuolo, Castle Rock (Douglas County)

 

From: 'Hugh Kingery' via Bluebird-Babble <bluebir...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 7, 2021 5:50 PM
To: cob...@googlegroups.com; dougl...@googlegroups.com; bluebir...@googlegroups.com
Subject: {Bluebird-Babble} Bluebird dearth

 

We have not seen many bluebirds this spring, so I compared this year with the three prior years' data. This year we have seen only one or two of either species only once in a while. The last 3 years we saw them almost daily starting in mid-March.

 

This drop seems striking, at least along our road and on the trail we walk regularly. Have others noticed this pattern?

 

Hugh & Urling Kingery

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