Birdhouse Walk at Westben

From their website: Westben Has Been Bringing People Together Through Music in Nature for 25 Years! In the past two years, they have made an extra effort to make their property even more nature friendly and sustainable. Here is a link to a video that will give you a good overview of what they are doing.

This morning somewhere around 20 people got to walk the grounds with Northumberland Land Trust's Leslie Abram. She is part of a team of volunteers who help to maintain the property. Our mission was to check 36 birdhouses to see who had nested in them this season and to clean them out. Westben folks wanted to know if what they were doing to make their land more nature-friendly was attracting more birds.

We started out learning a bit about the three types of birds that they expected to have nested there this year: Eastern Bluebirds, tree swallows and house wrens.

Get ready for a walk. We'll look at each bird house....

.... and decide who used it this year. We were told that often one bird begins building a nest which is then taken over by another type of bird. There could be other animals and insects living there too. Oh! The suspense!

Each nesting box is named after a common bird. Many of them have been sponsored by interested individuals.

Like this one: Be still my heart: a Mary Oliver quote!

The odd house had a non-bird inhabitant. In this case, mice! We decided to leave the nest there for the winter because they were in it. Isn't that a soft and cosy home?

Two native wildflower gardens were planted recently.

They are providing a variety of seeds for late-fall and winter feeders.

Isn't this a cosy home? Too bad the kids have been writing on the walls again.

Donna Bennett from Westben recorded who was living in each house.

Birdhouses were all over the property.

We learned that house wrens ram the birdhouses full of little sticks.

Their nests are messy. We found 16 house wren nests today!

I was anxious to see the tree swallows' nests. At the beginning of our walk, Lesley told us that male tree swallows attract their mates with colourful feathers. Believe it or not, they throw feathers into the air as they fly. Females will dive for the feathers and fly around. Their idea of courtship. ❤️ this. How romantic.

They use feathers to line their nests. And, here is one!

Tree swallows are not the tidiest of birds. Nothing like rearing your young on a bed of poop.

We circled back to our cars...

.... but not before we checked out a few more cosy abodes.

Doggone! This little tree swallow didn't make it. Do you see the blue egg?

The seasons are changing. Signs of winter and Christmas were spotted here and there.

Back at that tractor which is not going anywhere. someone spotted a Baltimore Oriole's nest in a nearby tree. We and our shadows were treated to one of its songs.

It was lovely to be a part of the birdhouse inspection ritual at Westben today. It was both informative and fun.

Christmas and winter are coming.

Maybe next year, more birds will move in to the 36 houses and more will survive.

Maybe next year, we will meet equally as lovely people too.

Or even a dog.

I think Mother Theresa's quote below could well be applied to sustainability. And, at Westben, they have begun and it's working.

“Yesterday is gone.

Tomorrow has not yet come.

We have only today.

Let us begin.”