Won't You Be My Neighbor

Today was one of those days where it seemed like all the stars aligned and all the forces in the universe came together to make everything just perfect with hardly any effort at all. As David Gray, put it in the song, Babylon, "Saturday I'm running wild, and all the lights are changin' red to green." That was my day. 
My purple martins have had a rough week - the rain and cold weather have not been optimal for them to find insects. Along with all the sub-adult arrivals the last few days, the adult males have also had to fight off the teenagers trying to run-away with their females. But, we made it through the worst of the weather, only losing 1 adult male. Today they woke up to a warm, foggy, misty morning and somehow they knew it was going to be a good day to find insects, so while waiting for the weather to clear, they hung out on the racks getting acquainted with some of their new neighbors.
So far, we've had 9 peaceful nights with no Great Horned Owl appearances. We're not missing her at all and today I celebrated our brief reprieve.

While it was warm out, I decided to check on the honeybee swarm that I captured 7 days ago. To my surprise, they had already built comb in about 1/3rd of each of 8 frames. All that work completed in only 7 days. Filled with nectar and pollen, I was mesmerized with the beautiful white comb and the perfect hexagon shapes. I could watch the building of the combs all day long. I've been pretty happy to find this swam seems to be reasonably gentle so far - they're turning out to be good neighbors.

With all the rain we've had, I was thrilled when I noticed all the new milkweed in the bed where we had kept the potted milkweed plants a couple of years ago before moving them out into the fields.  Over 50 new common milkweed plants have sprouted from the broken rhizomes when we pulled the pots out, a few asters and 8 new butterfly milkweeds. Unexpected neighbors, shouldering their way through the mulch and reaching for the hidden sun today. I learned a couple of years ago that common milkweed really likes moist areas and butterfly milkweed prefers dry feet, so if it keeps raining, I'm not sure the butterfly weed will make it here.

But the best surprise of the day came when I noticed a female bluebird going into a nestbox that has been paired with a tree swallow box for the last 2 years and never had any occupants.

I currently have 14 nestboxes for other birds here as well - some of which I've setup with the slotted entrances so the tree swallows can enter them, but the slot keeps the English House sparrow out. Unfortunately, it also keeps the bluebirds out, so I have round hole boxes for them set around the property as well.
When I discovered in Jan. 2018 that this Barred Owl was using this bluebird box on my trail as a lunch & go, I decided to move the box to the field, away from the forest and pair it up with a tree swallow box.

I had heard it would work but wasn't confident of that, since I had witnessed the ferocious battles between the tree swallows and bluebirds in my yard before.
But today, on my perfect day, guess what I found? The tree swallows had 4 little white eggs in their own little nestbox, reserved special just for them and a bluebird pair had moved into the paired nestbox that faces the opposite way and they have 5 eggs. Finally, after 2 years!

What were the odds that everything would come together in such perfect harmony today?
I'm sure we'll eventually see my GHO, we'll have to deal with the evil little flies that kill monarch caterpillars, we'll have to keep watch for varroa mites and English House sparrows.
But today, there was peace & harmony on Gobbler's Knob.  

Time to Put out the Welcome Mat for the Tree Swallows and Bluebirds

It is a lovely 64 degrees today with winds out of the southwest at 15-20 mph.  I'm not crazy about the wind part, but it helps to know from which direction it's coming when you want to clean out all fourteen of your nest boxes and get them ready for the season.

I usually host 3-4 pair of bluebirds and 10-12 pair of tree swallows each year.  Bluebirds have a large nesting territory.  The literature states that they need 300' between their nest boxes.  Tree swallows only need 100'.  So, I place a few bluebird nest boxes among the tree swallow boxes and the rest around the perimeter of the property.

I leave the nesting material in the boxes during the winter so the bluebirds will have a warm place to rest, albeit they may be a bit crusty from the detritus left from the boxes' previous inhabitants.  Today was a perfect day to get on the 4-wheeler and make the rounds.  I'm leaving them all open until tomorrow to make sure they're nice and dry for the guests that will be arriving soon.

Three of the Tree Swallow nest boxes that have been cleaned out.

I have added screws inside the doors of all my nest boxes for my Van Ert traps.  If an English House Sparrow (HOSP) shows up, I can quickly deploy the trap in the box.

Inside of nest box door with screws in place to accept the Van Ert Trap.

A Van Ert trap -my favorite nest box trap (NBT).

A HOSP can easily enter a 1.5" hole that is sized for a Bluebird, but to reduce the amount of risk and stress that I have with potential HOSP attacks, I make the entrance to the Tree Swallow boxes more HOSP-resistant by adding these slot entrances.  I cut the internal hole to be much bigger, then screwed the plate over it.  It's not HOSP proof, but it keeps the majority of them out, especially during the spring and summer when they will fatten up after the lean winter months.

Slot entrance for Tree Swallow nest box - cut from vinyl siding - 7/8" tall x 2 1/4" wide.

As I drove around to all the boxes I came upon some of my now crunchy, dried-out milkweed stalks.  This picture may not look like much to you, but it makes me smile.  Somewhere nearby, or maybe even a mile away, a seed from this plant landed and is currently working its way into the soil where it will sprout and provide food for Monarch caterpillars.

Empty Butterfly Milkweed pods. The hundreds of small promises of life have already spread themselves in the wind.

It doesn't seem fitting to add a picture of the remains of a dead calf to a post about birds, does it?  Apparently, the coyotes had themselves a large feast last night.  I'm sad for the calf, but that is the way things are here in the Ozarks.  You never know what you will discover on my birding trails.