Our Club is fortunate to have four individuals who dedicate countless hours each year to maintaining local Bluebirds trails: Harry Carlson, Dot Silsby, Jim Hill, and Nan LaRue. Dot and Harry submitted the following report for this season’s activities.

The HRBC Bluebird Trail located on the Deer Run and Cardinal golf courses at the Newport News City Park has now been in use for 35 years. The trail is maintained by Harry Carlson and Dot Silsby. This year they began checking on nest building, egg laying, and hatching March 28th and continued until August 13.

The 100 Bluebird nesting boxes were kept busy with Bluebirds producing 398 fledglings. One course had 201 fledged Bluebirds and the other had 197. Other species using the boxes were Carolina Chickadees (16 fledglings), House Wrens (15 fledglings), Carolinas Wrens (8 fledglings), and Tree Swallows (5 fledglings, a first for this trail).

We did not lose any Bluebirds to raccoons or snakes this year. The guards Harry designed and built have proven to be effective. We had some trouble with wasps during the summer and mud daubers in the fall. These annoying creatures kept a few boxes out of production for a short time, but did no long term damage. 

During this season, Dr. Dan Cristol and his student Ryan Burdge from the College of William & Mary, conducted research on the development of Bluebird young raised on golf courses to see if chemicals used on golf courses had a detrimental effect. They took blood samples and made accurate measurements of their size to compare with birds raised at other locations. The pesticide results are not known yet, but the nestlings appear to be similar in health to nestlings from off of golf courses. The Newport News courses may be more environmentally friendly than most courses. The golf course manager, Charlie Wheaton, tells us that he makes an effort to minimize the use of chemicals harmful to wildlife. Charlie also is very supportive of the Bluebird trail, allowing us to use golf carts for our surveys.

Kathy Van Mullekom (reporter) and Joe Fudge (photographer) with the Daily Press accompanied Dot and Harry on one of their record-keeping expeditions. An article on their investigation appeared in the June 10th 2007 issue of the paper. 

In the fall, Harry and Dot took down all of the boxes and many of the predator guards as well for repair and painting. The boxes and guards are now back in place ready for another season. Harry also built ten boxes that open on the side for the purpose of taking side view (instead of top view) photographs of the young birds at various stages of development.

Nan LaRue and Jim Hill monitored the other Newport News Park Bluebird Trail, located in the Park Arboretum. This trail usually has 45 nesting boxes, but the total was reduced by 6 - 3 were stolen and 3 were torn down by unknown pranksters. From the remaining 39, 84 Bluebirds were fledged. There were also 16 Carolina Chickadees, 14 Carolina Wrens, and 13 House Wrens.

It was a great season, with new adventures every week: a young Red-Tailed Hawk sat still long enough to have his picture taken; a Black Snake was seen; Crawfish slowly made their way across the fairway; Hawks were spotted on their first flight; and Scarlet Tanagers often appeared.

Best of all, our own Nan LaRue was honored by the Virginia Bluebird Society for all of her good work: maintaining a Bluebird Trail; giving programs; serving as Treasurer of the HRBC; and keeping records of fledged Bluebirds from our area for the Virginia Bluebird Society. Congratulations, Nan!