Wastewater Bluebird Box Monitoring

Anita Friend, a chemist at the Muskegon County Wastewater System and liason person for the birding community, presented details at our March club meeting for monitoring the bluebird boxes along White Road extending east from the headquarters area.  Her instructions and images below describe in detail how that process will work.

Anyone wishing to volunteer on this project should contact Anita at the phone number below.  Bob Wygant will do the monitoring the weeks of April 7 and April 14.

   1.  Contact Anita Friend (231-724-3457) to schedule a day to check the nest boxes.  If no one has called by Wednesday, she will contact Bob Wygant and he will monitor the nest boxes for that week.

   2.  Obtain a Visitor's Pass and Field Data Sheets from the Wastewater Administration Building’s main desk Monday through Friday.  Please note that all header information is already filled in for each nest box.

   3.  Monitor the nest boxes.  Anita will demonstrate how to do this for first-time volunteers.

   4.  Return the Field Data Sheets to the main desk at the Administration Building. 

All field data is entered into the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Nestwatch website, and an end-of-season report will be given to the Michigan Bluebird Society.

Thank you for helping with this exciting project!  Please do not hesitate to call Anita with questions, concerns or feedback.

14 People 45 Species This Morning

Feller DeWitt's Ottawa County Field Trip went well this cold cloudy morning.

Beginning at Chinook Pier in downtown Grand Haven we traveled to Harbor Island and then the fisherman's parking lot at the State Park seeing 29 species along the way including White-winged Scoter, Red-necked Grebe, Peregrine Falcon, Common Grackle, Glaucous Gull, Great Black-backed Gull (5 at Harbor Island), Killdeer and Hooded Merganser.

At Pigeon Lake near the Campbell Power Plant we added 5 more species including Pied-billed Grebe.  Along Crosswell Road on our way to Hemlock Crossing were 2 more: Pileated Woodpecker and Red-breasted Nuthatch.

Hemlock Crossing gave us 11 more including Downy, Red-bellied and Harry Woodpeckers, Red-tailed Hawk and American Tree Sparrow.

March 20 Meeting & Program

Post-meeting Update:  Thirty people heard from Anita Friend of Muskegon County Wastewater regarding the upcoming project to maintain bluebird boxes along the trails near W.W. headquarters.  Then Zachary DeBruine presented his program regarding eBird and the many new and innovative features there.