Kathleen Snyder
As I reported last month, we had a problem with adult swallows dying inside nest boxes at Glacial Heritage Preserve. We sent in the carcasses of an adult Tree Swallow and four chicks to the WA Dept of Fish and Wildlife lab in Spokane. Unfortunately, the specimens were too old to be useful for testing.
On July 9th, our team of Glacial Heritage monitors had a really upsetting session. We found 31 dead chicks in 9 boxes. 27 were swallows and 4 were of unknown species. There were also chick deaths at Cavness Preserve where we have 15 boxes. We don’t know what caused this but starvation comes to mind. Swallows are aerial insectivores while bluebirds go after ground insects. If flying insects are being decimated by agricultural and other practices, that could explain why swallows are having trouble.
On a happier note, the photo above is of a nest full of newborn Western Bluebirds, taken on July 19th. You can see why it is hard to get an exact count of the little babies! There are both swallow and bluebird chicks currently being raised on our sites and we wish them the best of outcomes.
The photos below show a nest of Purple Martins at Rocky Prairie (by Kelly McAllister), a photo of how Kelly gets his photos inside a martin nest box (by Lisa Genuit), and Hooded Lady’s Tresses, an orchid at Glacial Heritage (by Peter Dederich). The bluebird chicks’ photo is also by Peter.
