Nine days ago, Herb, Richard and I put out a bluebird nesting box on Goats Peak. This is the nest box that Maurice built and donated to our project. Today we returned to the area to see if any bluebirds had arrived. Since the forest fire on the mountain a few years ago, it has become preferred habitat for bluebirds and other insect eaters. Most of the bluebirds that I have seen there have been Mountain Bluebirds but on occasion I have seen Western Bluebirds there also. The birds begin arriving in their northward migration about this time of year. On our two first-of-the season visits to the area, we had seen no bluebirds and so finding some pictures of bluebirds on my trail camera today was a very pleasant surprise. I fully expected that they would be Mountain Bluebirds but they turned out to be Western Bluebirds, all males so far.

Last year I found a pair of Mountain Bluebirds on Goats Peak that had picked an unattended woodpecker nest hole in a stump for a nest site. I set one of my trail cameras to monitor their activities but a pair of flickers arrived and evicted the bluebirds. So that project ended up as an interesting study of the nesting behaviour of a family of flickers.

On both of our trips to the area this year, we heard and saw flickers. One sat watching us from the top of a tree as we checked the camera today. The camera's memory card had stored several pictures of flickers that had visited and examined the bluebird nest box but Maurice had constructed the box so that the circular entry hole is the prescribed size for bluebirds but too small to allow entry of larger birds, such as starlings and woodpeckers. Therefore, although the pictures showed that the flickers were obviously interested, they found that they could not enter the nest cavity. The first bird to arrive just two days after the box was put up was a flicker.

The next day, February 25, a male Western Bluebird came to inspect the nest box and the following day, two male Western Bluebirds arrived together. All told, in the first nine days that the box was there, the camera recorded 3 visits by flickers and 4 by bluebirds. Bluebirds commonly rear two families per season and I hope that they will use this nest box so that we can follow their activities throughout the nesting period.