Newark Reporter

Environmental staff recently monitored the Bird Box Trail at the Essex County Francis A. Byrne Golf Course.  All the boxes were built by local Eagle Scouts. 

It was another successful tree swallow season with ten total nests documented. Tree Swallows are the aerial acrobats devouring thousands of mosquitoes high and low, each day. Some boxes had a double layer of nest so they would have raised two successful broods.  

Project Description19 Bluebird Boxes are on Byrne Golf Course. All built by Essex County Eagle Scouts.  The boxes are paired 5-18 feet apart for best practices of targeting Eastern Bluebirds and Tree Swallows together and 100+ yards apart from other box sets to encourage multiple pairs of breeding birds.  Tree Swallows are the predominate species and most welcome but hopefully bluebirds will take up residence and their population will increase. Other species that may nest include black capped chickadees, tufted titmice, tree swallows, white breasted nuthatches, house wrens and house sparrows. 

Each pair of tree swallow parents catch and feed their brood (of 4-7 nestlings) about 6,000 insects per day during an average of 20 days spent inside the nest box (sialis.org). That accounts for 120,000 insects per box so with 10 successful boxes the birds may have devoured around 1,200,000 insects in the 2022 breeding season.  One adult tree swallow can eat it’s body weight in mosquitoes a day!

To learn how to properly construct, maintain and monitor a bird house trail and much more, visit the North American Bluebird Society. https://www.nabluebirdsociety.org/

Original source can be found here.