The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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November 16, 2008

Andra Bryan Stefanoni: Audubon chapter builds bluebird boxes

FRONTENAC, Kan. — Bluebirds in the region will find about 60 additional rooms available next nesting season, and some of them might be cozy as early as this winter, thanks to a bluebird box construction project taken on by members of the Sperry-Galligar Audubon Society chapter.

The chapter serves nature enthusiasts in Crawford, Cherokee and Bourbon counties. Many of them for several years have helped to develop bluebird nest-box trails in Southeast Kansas and Southwest Missouri, and to keep close tabs on the number of bluebirds successfully fledged from each box.

On Sunday, nine of the members gathered at the home of Bob and Liz Mangile, of Frontenac, who organized past work days that netted the group 85 boxes and 30 ground feeders for songbirds.

Sunday’s agenda included the construction of 50 bluebird boxes using recycled wood from pallets discarded at Southeast Kansas Recycling in Pittsburg.

Kicking off the project assembly-line style in midmorning, the members of the group worked in warmer weather than they had expected and were so efficient that they beat their goal.

By 4 p.m., the members had built 60 of the boxes and were starting to paint them, having stopped only to refuel on a hearty lunch of Liz’s chicken and rice finished off with pumpkin pie.

They enjoyed camaraderie and swapping birding stories, but there was a mission to their madness. Mangile said they will sell the boxes — along with gourd birdhouses, nine wren houses and the stockpile of ground feeders — for $5 each at the group’s annual birdseed sale from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Dec. 6 at Meadowbrook Mall in Pittsburg.

The fund-raiser will help the chapter support its educational and environmental missions, while the boxes will help bluebirds, which saw their populations decline dramatically in the 1950s, partly because of habitat destruction by humans.

Clear-cutting fence rows and removing dead trees that the cavity-dwellers used for nesting led to a scarcity of suitable nesting sites. Competition from nonnative house sparrows and European starlings, combined with an increased use of pesticides in gardens and farms, didn’t help matters.

The National Audubon Society reports that “to see a bluebird in the mid-’60s was a notable event, one worth mentioning as an unusual bird sighting at an Audubon chapter meeting.”

Since then, birders across North America have contributed to the dramatic turnaround with large-scale nest-box programs. Canada boasts trails that are 100 miles long and are the envy of bluebird-watchers everywhere, Mangile said.

Members of the Sperry-Galligar chapter with trails include Elma Hurt, whose trail at her home just outside Pittsburg is now up to 31 boxes, and Larry Herbert, of Joplin, Mo., who maintains three trails in Baxter Springs, Galena and Joplin.

And now, thanks to the Sperry-Galligar project, community members may make their own marks on bluebird conservation efforts, one box at a time.

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