Another fancy tree swallow home.

This week I had a chance to take a drive through the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The object being to look for birds that might still be nesting. Red-tailed hawks, Swainson’s hawks, bald eagles, northern harriers, one prairie falcon and a Cooper’s hawk were either foraging or soaring on the thermals. The only young birds I saw were juvenile bald eagles. The ponds and sloughs were virtually empty except for a few Canada geese and their goslings. Richardson’s ground squirrels were out of their burrows along with their young. No wonder the raptors were prominent in the valleys and fields of the foothills.

The expected nesters were tree swallows, mountain bluebirds and house wrens. There were several bluebird boxes on fence posts along the main road which tree swallows also use. In fact, they are the main competitors of mountain bluebirds for housing. House wrens will use the nesting boxes too, but they were not seen or heard on this day. We detoured from our usual route to drive on Wildcat Hills Rd. The name is intriguing. I can only imagine why it was so named. It is out in the middle of cattle ranching properties in the foothills and winds up almost to the sky through large, green fields and tall, thick spruce forests. The large expanses of ranch land are where the ground squirrel makes its home, and where the raptors are seen on the hunt. Coyotes, mule deer and cattle make up the rest of the ranch land inhabitants. We saw them all.

Wildcat Hills Rd. led us to the backroads. On one of them we came across about a quarter of a mile of nesting boxes. There was a total of 34. Some were placed 9-10 feet apart, but most were about twenty feet apart. All were mounted on fence posts and decorated. They were just what the doctor ordered for tree swallows and mountain bluebirds who were in the market for a nesting site. Time and weather faded some of the vibrant colors and caused a box or two to be inhabitable, but most had survived the cold, snowy, wintry weather in the foothills of the Rockies. I have no idea who placed the nesting boxes on the posts but is seems as though it might be the children of a school or camp, but it appears to be a project done by a group of young people. It is amazing!

It would be nice to know whether the person who orchestrated the nesting box enterprise knew that putting two boxes close together usually means that a bluebird will use one and a tree swallow will likely use the other. It seems that neither species likes to nest too close to another of its kind. Many of the fancy nest boxes were being used by tree swallows and at least one box had been taken by a mountain bluebird. All the birds had young in their nest, so the parents were busy feeding their nestlings. Both swallow and bluebird parents were actively bringing beaks full of luscious insects to their hungry youngsters.

The rest of this article showcases some of the nesting boxes and their inhabitants. It was an exciting day in the field. It was birding at its finest! Happy birding!