Bluebird Project

Calvert County Bluebird Trails

Calvert County is located in Southern Maryland. A peninsula bordered on the west by the Patuxent River and on the east by the Chesapeake Bay, much of the county is rural with major agricultural crops being corn, soybeans and tobacco. Large, open fields bordered by woodlands are conducive to the presence of Eastern Bluebirds (Sialia sialis) who are year-round residents.

The Calvert Bluebird Council, headquartered at the Nature Center at Battle Creek Cypress Swamp oversees the monitoring of 22 official trails with 411 boxes throughout the county. At season's end the results are compiled and submitted to the MD Bluebird Society.

Trails have between 10-40 bluebird nest boxes. Boxes are monitored weekly between late March/early April through August or September. Observers fill out a standard form collecting information on nest starts, number of eggs laid, number of eggs hatched  and the number of young fledged. Most trails require walking, carrying a notebook and small toolkit. Some monitors may have to deal with high grass as the season wears on. Forms are to be submitted to the Trail Lead at the end of the season. The data is then compiled and submitted to the MD Bluebird Society to aid in ongoing population studies across MD and the US.

Besides monitoring, there is occasional need to install new trails. This includes digging post holes, setting 8' 4x4 posts, and attaching predator guards and the nest boxes to the posts.