I took advantage of today's great weather to clean and do maintenance on my
nest boxes at Mudhen Marsh. Bill Heck earned points galore as he joined me
which  made the job easier and faster. I managed to pay Bill back with some
cooperative  birds that decided to made timely appearances.

There are 22 nest boxes in this area of my nest box trail. As we cleaned
them we located 11 boxes with Prothonotary Warbler nests, 2 with Tree Swallow
nests, 3 with House Wrens and a nest that was only partially built and we
couldn't determine by what. That's a 50 percent occupancy rate by the  Prothonotary
Warblers, and an overall  77 usage rate. We cleaned all the  boxes, replaced
old screws with new ones for the flaps, gave a wood rustoleum  coat to boxes
in need, and remounted 2 boxes that had come down. A good mornings  work.

Bird activity in the area was overall slow as is to be expected at this  time
of the year, but what we saw was high in quality. We observed at least 3
Red-headed Woodpeckers, although with the movement there may have been 4; 4
Spotted Sandpipers; several Yellowlegs, we were too far away to call which sp;
and what appeared to be a possible Pectoral Sandpiper; we loss count of the
Green Herons that seemed to be everywhere, but the number was definitely double
digits; 2 Blue-headed Vireos, and a Barred Owl. The other usual suspects were
also around but didn't get our attention.

The edge of the reservoir along this area is dropping and some mudflats are
becoming exposed. We also met a pleasant couple from Worthington that were
kayaking along the shore and enjoying the great weather this morning.   52 boxes
done, 198 to go.

Charlie Bombaci
Hoover Nature Preserve





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