Carving out just a sliver of time to accept statewide honors from the Bureau of State Parks, a Centre County husband-and-wife team is back on the trail—the Cavity-Nesting Trail, that is, at Black Moshannon State Park.

 

Enjoy the splash of cobalt the bluebird provides? The spunky antics of the chickadee? If you enjoy seeing these and other cavity-nesting birds around Black Moshannon State Park, you can thank one very special volunteer team whose dedication to birds and their habitat have earned them DCNR’s 2008 Cavity-Nesting Monitor of the Year Award.

 

Bonnie and Bill Ford of Bellefonte, Centre County, were chosen from more than 150 volunteers statewide and honored for her “long-term dedication and enthusiasm” displayed while volunteering to monitor and help protect and propagate Eastern bluebirds and other cavity-nesting species as part of the Bureau of State Parks’ statewide monitoring program.

 

A total of 33 nesting boxes on the state park grounds near Phillipsburg, Centre County, are supervised by the Fords, who assumed monitoring duties in 2005 after a 12-year stint of erecting, maintaining and regularly checking wood duck nesting boxes at the 3,394-acre park.

 

“The boxes are spread hither and yon around the park,” said Mrs. Ford who, with her husband, weekly devotes four or more hours and a 45-mile-round-trip to monitoring duties. “We did wood duck boxes for almost 13 years and this is a welcome break from climbing up and down ladders, carrying the ladders, and relying on canoes. We’re not getting any younger.”

 

No stranger to Black Moshannon, Mrs. Ford, 55, sees the monitoring efforts as a “small price to pay for the all the enjoyment the park has afforded us over the years.”

 

“We just enjoy being outdoors,” said the Pennsylvania State University laboratory director. “We enjoy it all—the park’s trees and wild flowers. Primarily wooded, the park is not exactly ideal bluebird habitat, but we get all kinds of other cavity nesters: chickadees, tree swallows, wrens.”

 

The fickle weather of spring 2009 took a toll on some nesting bluebirds. That was one observation shared by Mrs. Ford, and her husband, a 58-year-old university retiree: “It was primarily cold and wet, and we lost at least one box full of hatchlings to the weather. It’s hard on them when they can’t get the insects they need to feed their young.”

 

Surprises on the trail? “Oh, of course, we’ve had the chipmunks taking up residence. And flying squirrels, but my favorite this year was a plastic egg, hidden in a nesting box and obviously never found during an Easter egg hunt at the park.”

 

And, was there a $5 bill inside? “Nope,” quipped Mrs. Ford, “but there was a Tootsie Roll!”

 

Mrs. and Mrs. Ford draw special praise from those who oversee education and other public programs at Black Moshannon. Among them is Environmental Education Specialist Michelle McCloskey:

 

“Black Moshannon now has many more boxes and hatchlings than what were here in 1991 when the program started. Since Bill and Bonnie have been participating in the bluebird monitoring, the bluebirds have gained nine more nest boxes to add to their habitat, and have been able to more than double the amount of hatchlings that fledge.

 

“Not only are Bill and Bonnie here every week checking thirty-one boxes for signs of bluebirds, but they also spend time volunteering at other events in the park, such as helping with the Friends of Black Moshannon Summer Festival, the Lumber Day events, and teaching bluebird habitat to the Women In The Outdoors participants and the PA Wilds Child participants.”

 

The Bureau of State Parks cavity-nesting-monitoring program, which celebrated its 27th anniversary in 2008, now involves 49 of the 117 state parks across the state, according to Tara E. Gettig ,

Environmental Education Program Specialist with the Bureau of State Parks.

 

The nesting box trails program has involved over 150 volunteers, ranging in age from high school students to some in their upper 80s. They check some 1,800 nesting boxes across the state in individual park efforts that monitor from five to more than 175 nesting boxes.

 

Commitment to the nesting-box program is not new, Gettig noted. More than 15 of the volunteers have been checking nesting boxes; cleaning and repairing them; jotting notes; and hiking trails for over 20 or more years. What is new, she said, is an increased focus beyond the Eastern bluebird to include other cavity-nesting species.

 

“This is the second nesting season revised data sheets were used by trail volunteers, and more detailed data is being collected on a wider range of cavity-nesting species, such as wood ducks and flycatchers,” Gettig said. “The Bluebird Trails Program began with the intent of reestablishing the bluebird population, but the program is beneficial to other native cavity-nesting species as well.”

 

The importance of other native cavity-nesting species is reflected in the effort’s 2009 name-change to Bureau of State Parks Cavity-Nesting Trails Program, Gettig said, as well as the awarding of annual “Cavity-Nesting Monitor” honors to volunteers like the Fords. Volunteer manuals will be updated to include cavity-nesting information and a new cavity-nesting brochure will replace the Bluebird Trails in Pennsylvania State Parks publication. Changes will not affect the parks nest box trails or volunteers.

 

Those volunteers oversaw the fledging of 2,597 Eastern bluebirds and 3,430 other cavity-nesting species during 2008, according to Gettig. A grand total of 48, 037 Eastern bluebirds have been fledged since 1981.

 

For more details on the Cavity-Nesting Trails Program, contact Gettig at 717-783-3344.