Bluebird Season Off to a Good Start

Western Bluebirds Settling In | Photo credit: Kathy Finholm

• We now have 8 active nesting territories spread throughout San Juan Island. Eggs have been laid in some of the nests, and we will have the first nestlings in about another week. This is one more pair than we had nesting at this time last year. Any uptick in population is promising!
• One of the females is unbanded, and another female may have migrated up from her source population at Joint Base Lewis-McChord (in the South Sound)—a good sign, as it shows the population may be bigger than we think, and that they are recruiting birds from outside the SJI population.
• Volunteers are doing the bulk of the monitoring at the moment, with oversight and check-ins from SJPT.
• One active nesting location is at the LaFarge Gravel Pit, owned by Island Rec. As all other locations are on private land, the gravel-pit site offers a great opportunity to go view the birds for those who want to observe them!
• We are still collecting sighting info. Don’t assume we know where all the birds are. We still need people searching for them.