Nesting Western Bluebirds

There is just something special about Western Bluebirds. Whether I see them in rural farmlands or mountain clearcuts, they are always a joy to see. They are small and unassuming.They have a soft, cat-like "mew" or "bew" call. Even though the males are blue with rusty breasts, the colors aren't gaudy.The female's colors are even more muted. Everything about this bird is understated.

Several local birders noted the presence of these birds this spring in a clearcut along a logging road in the Coast Range above Hagg Lake, west of Portland, Oregon. While I was primarily looking for forest species like Hermit Warblers, Gray Jays, and Sooty Grouse, I spent some time watching the bluebirds and finally noted where they flew up to a snag at the edge of the forest. There they had a nest in an old woodpecker hole. These photos were taken May 29, 2012.

A couple of years ago I wrote a post on Western Bluebirds in the Willamette Valley and how they've made a remarkable recovery since the low point in their population about 40 years ago.

Western Bluebird

Western Bluebird, Champoeg State Park, Oregon, 8 November 2011 by Greg Gillson.

 

I stopped by Champoeg State Park recently, and was able to photograph this Western Bluebird using my car as a blind.

This bird is banded, probably in concert with the Prescott Bluebird Recovery Project, which builds bluebird nest boxes and monitors populations locally in the northern Willamette Valley.

Champoeg was a town between Portland and Salem, Oregon. In the early 1840's the rapidly increasing number of settlers met at Champoeg and voted to set up a local provisional government. Up until that time both the United States and Great Britain jointly occupied the Oregon Territory, with the British Hudson Bay Company having a presence at Fort Vancouver (near present day Vancouver, Washington). Relations were friendly-enough between American and British subjects (and French-Canadian, Spanish, and Russian fur trappers), but there was really no "government" to speak of for the American settlers. This provisional government ruled until 1848 when Oregon became an official territory of the United States. Oregon became a state in 1859. In December 1861 a huge flood swept away the town of Champoeg and it was never rebuilt.

A previous post on Western Bluebirds.

Friday Foto: Western Bluebird

Western Bluebird, Cooper Mountain Nature Park, Beaverton, Oregon, 19 March 2011 by Greg Gillson.

 

See a previous article on Western Bluebirds.

In the countryside... Western Bluebird

Western Bluebird in a clear cut, Hayward, Washington Co., Oregon on 16 May 2008 by Greg Gillson.

 

When I began birding in 1972 the Western Bluebird was near the bottom of a 30-year decline in population in western Oregon countrysides. In fact, they were nearly extirpated. For instance, winter bird censuses for the Portland Christmas Bird Counts (CBC) from 1935-1947 averaged 20 birds per year, with a high of 47 and a low of 5. From 1966-1976 not a single bluebird was recorded on the Portland CBC (Hubert Prescott, Portland Bluebird Trail, SWOC Talk, Vol 3, No. 2. 1977).

Causes of decline are complex, controversial, and not fully understood. Certainly the spread of House Sparrows in the Pacific NW from the late 1890's was a large factor. The demise of family farms and the conversion to larger edge-to-edge farming played a role, as did the conversion of farmland into residential suburbs. Widespread use of insecticides may have played a role after World War II from 1945, eliminating insects or causing harm to birds eating treated insects. Then, too, the European Starlings could also have hurried the bluebird's downfall after they arrived in western Oregon in the 1940's. Forest practices, namely clear cutting with complete snag removal, made the foothills unattractive to bluebirds.

There were a very few bluebirds remaining, however, on farms on some of the small hills in the Willamette Valley. From 1974-1976 Bluebird Trails started up in rural areas near Portland, Salem, Corvallis, Eugene, and elsewhere. Volunteers built and placed hundreds of bluebird boxes at regularly spaced intervals across rural areas, starting at known nesting sites. Small diameter entrance holes kept out Starlings and most House Sparrows. But Violet-green Swallows, Black-capped Chickadees, House Wrens, Bewick's Wrens and other cavity nesting birds competed for these boxes. And predation and vandalism was high. Nevertheless, bluebird numbers climbed.

Numbers have not recovered on the Portland CBC. Perhaps, because of the urban sprawl, bluebirds will never return to backyards in Portland. But in Corvallis, some comparisons can be made. The first 5 years of counts in Corvallis, 1963-1967, this count averaged 24 birds. The population crashed, perhaps due to disease and a harsh winter, in 1969. During a couple of subsequent years no bluebirds were found. In the 5 years after the Corvallis Bluebird Trail was started, 1976-1980, Corvallis averaged 54 bluebirds on the CBC. In the most recent 5-year period, 2003-2007, the average number of Western Blubirds on the Corvallis CBC was 263. Amazing!

More and more people in the general public are erecting specially designed bluebird nest boxes. Forest practices have changed a bit so that some standing snags are left after timber harvest. Bluebirds nest in old woodpecker holes in these snags out in the middle of a clear cut in the lower Coast Range and Cascade forests. And bluebirds are increasing because of it.

In the Pacific Northwest, Western Bluebirds occur in lowland farmlands with scattered trees away from European Starlings west of the Cascades in Oregon and Washington. They also like open pine forests on the east slope of the Cascades of Oregon and Washington and higher mountians of NE Oregon, SE Washington, northern Washington and Idaho. They like oak savannah and open dry woods in SW Oregon and northern California.