After the discouraging problems with the
weather and intestinal parasites in 1999, it is wonderful to have a highly
successful year in 2000. Here are some of the highlights:
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We banded 1733 bluebirds, a 24% increase over
1999.
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We had 456 nesting attempts by bluebirds,
of which 77% successfully fledged 1467 young bluebirds.
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The average clutch size was 5 eggs.
On average 4 eggs hatched per clutch and 3 young fledged.
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We had 9 pairs that nested three times, four
of them successfully.
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We fostered 27 orphan chicks into other nests,
and all but 5 fledged.
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We had 5 clutches of white bluebird eggs.
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Monitor Gail Bolstad fledged 78 bluebirds
from her Sherwood route, the most of any monitor this year.
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Pam Reid, Ellen Stevenson and Dennis Wiley
joined us as banders this year, bringing our total number of banders to
8.
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We had 82 volunteers monitoring 1547 nestboxes
over 5 counties.
Written by Marilynne Kaiser
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