NESTBOX COMPARISON STUDIES
From New York:

two quite different studies of nestbox preferences by bluebirds:

E Dave Hofer, of East Concord has compared standard (NABS) and Peterson boxes for five years. He has kept detailed records and banding data, including 15 recaptures in the last three years. One of those was five years old. The Peterson boxes proved twice as successful as the NABS box. This past year, he paired Peterson boxes with five Gilwood boxes and eight PVC boxes. One of the Gilwood boxes was used twice by bluebirds. Tree swallows did use all five of the Gilwood boxes and all eight of the PVC boxes.

"In general our year was definitely two different seasons: April and May were not good at all; June and July were great. Tree swallows had a terrible year this season... it wasn't just the bad weather. I think we had far fewer [tree swallows] in our area this year."

Data, yery condensed below, is from eight pages of detailed records sent to Dave Ahlgren.

Description	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000
# of boxes # of NABS boxes # of Peterson boxes # of Gilwood boxes # of PVC boxes Paired box locations	52 42 10 0 0 22	82 61 21 0 0 36	82 54 28 0 0 38	87 53 34 0 0 41	95 41 41 5 8 46
Fledged/NABS box Fledged/Peterson box Fledged/Gilwood box Fledged/PVC box Total birds fledged	1.38 1.60 0 0 74	0.72 1.86 0 0 83	1.11 2.57 0 0 132	0.60 2.79 0 0 127	1.20 2.80 1.80 0 173
Adults banded Chicks banded	25 97	31 100	35 184	64 241	69 283

Kevin L. Berner,⁽¹⁾ of New York University, Cobleskill, presented some of his personal research at the recent North American Bluebird Society (NABS) Board meeting in Minneapolis: In my research through 1999, my most successful boxes to date had been NABS boxes with oval [Peterson] holes. This summer, I paired NABS oval-hole boxes with both Gilwood and Troyer boxes. ⁽²⁾ The NABS oval boxes paired with Troyer boxes had twice as many bluebird attempts as the Troyer box. Tree swallows used nearly equal number of each style. When Gilwood boxes were paired with NABS oval-hole boxes, the Gilwood boxes had more than six times the bluebird use than the NABS boxes. Swallows used the NABS boxes at a higher rate than Gilwood, probably because bluebirds occupied most of the Gilwood boxes.

Box style	No. of boxes	No. of nesting attempts
Box style	No. of boxes	Bluebirds	Tree Swallows
NABS oval Troyer	21 21	17 8	12 11
NABS oval Gilwood	21 21	4 25	16 7

(1) Kevin Berner, NABS Research Chairman, will be one of our speakers at our April 21 Conference.
(2) Troyer boxes are rectangular with a slot entrance at the top of a downward-slanting front. The Gilwood box is a sturdv wooden box, with adjustable entrance.

Posted with permission from the February 2001 Bluebird Recovery Program Newsletter "BLUEBIRD NEWS"

12/23/02

Maps

NESTBOX COMPARISON STUDIES From New York:

two quite different studies of nestbox preferences by bluebirds:

NESTBOX COMPARISON STUDIES
From New York: