A Blueprint for Bluebirds
By Pamela Boe
Thousands of dead worms lay at my doorstep. A gigantic box of them. That was how I met my charming Ag Reserve neighbor, Anne Sturm, more than a decade ago.
Her dried up mealworms had been delivered to my house by mistake. So scratching my head,
I took them down the road to her where, to my delight, I learned their purpose: to help save the Eastern Bluebird.
A resident of the Agricultural Reserve since before there was an Agricultural Reserve, Anne’s family once owned the land around my own little cottage on Peach Tree Road. She still lives
just down the road where she nurtures all sorts of wildlife, but most particularly, those sweet, bright blue songbirds whose very existence are entirely threatened.
In the early 70’s, through the Audubon Naturalist Society, Anne met Dr. Lawrence Zeleny, a scientist who first sounded the alarm on the plight of bluebirds. He sparked her lifelong passion to save the disappearing species. He was leading educational walks on his bluebird trails in Beltsville where she learned that the biggest threats to bluebirds are European Starlings, House Sparrows, and habitat loss, but that the introduction of specifically designed bluebird houses with holes no larger than 1-½” could effectively mitigate these issues. Dr. Zeleny had begun a movement that joined efforts in Canada and spread to Mexico to support bluebirds through education, placement and monitoring of bluebird boxes and trails. Across the country, from small land-owning private citizens, to huge public parks, people began building and installing these special boxes, with great success.
State and local parks joined in the effort as well, creating bluebird box trails in many parks, including Black Hill Regional Park, Seneca Creek State Park, and the Woodstock Equestrian Park on Route 28. But though the parks’ efforts helped, they faced a troubling threat of vandals and foot-traffic issues. In fact, in 2010 at a park near Gaithersburg, vandals destroyed the nest boxes, killed hatchlings, and smashed eggs of several nest boxes. So the Parks service began looking to places where foot traffic and habitat destruction were less of an issue and the vulnerable birds could be better protected.
Enter the Ag Reserve! The Agricultural Reserve is ideal for bluebirds, because they are not city birds, nor are they deep woods dwellers. They prefer open spaces and mowed grass, scattered trees and grasslands. In short, they need an agricultural setting. And since the Ag Reserve is comprised mainly of private farms, any birdhouses installed here would less likely be vandalized.
But Anne was already on this task! Since the 70’s she has been installing bluebird boxes in many parts of the Agricultural Reserve. She placed them throughout her family’s farm on Peach Tree Road. She hung them up along Harris Road in Barnesville. She built them along the road in the Potomac Hunt Club. She put them wherever she could.
And the bluebirds came!
Before long, she was on the board and later president of the North American Bluebird Society (NABS), supporting the effort locally. Even now, she and her friends, Linda Pepe, most recent past president of the Maryland Bluebird Society Stan Fisher, and his wife Beth have been working with the Global Ecology Magnet Program at Poolesville High School for the past six years educating the next generation about the plight of these sweet birds. They have been teaching the students about bluebird trails and maintenance, and all of the trails they study and monitor are within the Ag Reserve.
NABS, in conjunction with Cornell University, has been monitoring the species’ numbers. Nationwide, since the efforts in the ‘70’s, bluebird numbers have increased dramatically, until about five years ago when they, alarmingly, leveled off. But there is good news says Stan. “In the state of Maryland we are holding our own or doing a little bit better than the national average.”
This is largely due to the commitment of people like Dr. Zeleny, Anne Sturm, Stan and Beth, but also because of protected areas like the Ag Reserve which serve as a foothold for the struggling species. By reducing urbanization, and limiting the threats that go along with it, the Ag Reserve serves as a bastion of protection for this beautiful, vulnerable species.
Oh, and it turns out, bluebirds love dried mealworms. In conjunction with this article, John Speelman at Poolesville Hardware has stocked bluebird houses and mealworms for anyone who wants to invite bluebirds into their yards.
If you are interested in learning more about bluebirds and how you can help them, visit: Mdbluebirdsociety.org.
Pamela Boe is a freelance writer, blogger (Mamaboe.com), former paramedic, avid cook, gardener, and outdoorswoman. She lives in the Ag Reserve with her husband and two children.