Happy Fathers Day and Happy First Day of Summer

Welcome to the first day of Summer on the Green Meadows Preserve Park Bluebird Trail.

This is the summer season photo of the Tree of Life, she is so full, green and beautiful during this season.

Come bring your easy chair and a bottle of water and come set a spell during these mid 90's HOT days.

She will make you feel cooler just by looking at her, must less setting under her beautiful green cool canopy.


Our last Walk and Talk Tour on Saturday June 13th was a big success, we had 25 brave people come out on a HOT Saturday morning to learn more about the Bluebird Trail and Bluebird.

We had a number of people that were back for there second Walk and Talk Tour. It is always good when we see faces that we recognize and they have guest with them.

One of the items we need for the Bluebird Trail and the many kids and school groups that we do field trips for is Binoculars new or used.

The kids love to take Binoculars on their walks, they think they can see so many more birds and they can see them up close. We put numbers on the binoculars and they check them out and in after their walk.

 We have a donation box inside the gate under the shed for you to drop off any binoculars that you might wish to donate to the Bluebird Trail. Anything you do is always appreciated and used on the trail.

The Bluebird Trail is totally funded through Sponsorships, Contributions and friends of the Bluebird Trail. My pocket funds the difference that it takes to feed the birds during nesting season to help with the healthy development of the baby birds and the cold winter to help keep them alive.

During the Nesting season we feed them Dried Mealworms, to help supplement their insect diet.

Now their are a lot of wild black berries in the park that helps with their food source.

If you come and walk the trail you will see a lot of the wild black berries as you walk the trail.

This is why we are planting berry producing shrubs/trees that are sponsored by different individuals to replace the man made perches at each Nest Box. This will help to provide food during the fall and winter to cut down on our mealworm cost. They are all native trees/shrubs and we have planted 6 already and have 15 that have been sponsored. We will plant the remainder of shrubs/trees in the fall, so they can get established during the fall and winter when we get rain.

Right now we are having to haul water in five gallon buckets out to the 6 shrubs/trees that we have planted. With this mid 90 degree weather and not much rain, we are trying to keep them alive until we get some rain on a regular basis.

I am so excited this year we have hatched and fledged to broods of Tree  Swallows. Last year they made a nest in Nest Box #16 but never laid eggs. This year they made a nest in #19 and #24 laid eggs, hatched and fledged 5 baby Tree Swallows from both nest boxes. They are such a beautiful bird with white chest blue/green feathers on their backs. As you see they use grass and lots of feathers to build their nest.

I hope on your next walk on the Trail you will be able to see the adults flying around the open fields.

Look for this logo to be around the trail soon as our official logo giving directions and distances for the Bluebird Trail. This logo was designed and developed by a group of Kennesaw State Students for the Friends of Green Meadows Preserve Park.

We hope to be able to have the signs in areas of question as to which way you should go to follow the Trail. As you can see it is of the Bluebird and our Tree of Life in the Park.

NestWatch - 2015 Quick Summary

 32 - Total Nest Sites being monitored

 47 - Total Nesting Attempts

177 - Total Eggs

143 - Total Young

122 - Total Fledglings

 

Remember

 

We will discontinue our Walk and Talk Tours for the Summer,

 

we will start the Tours again in the Fall, 

 

look for the scheduled dates in our next blog.

 

 

Any questions: email me at

 

jimbearden@bellsouth.net

 

 

Green Meadows Preserve Park Bluebird Trail

 

Where Birds Come to Life!

 

 

Thanks for joining us along the Trail.....Jim B

Welcome To June! Can you believe that Summer is Just Around The Corner!

WOW! Can you believe that we are already into the 6th Month of this year already, half of 2015 is about to be gone. I guess as I am getting a little older, time seems to be passing a little faster. Father's Day Sunday June 21st is the official first day of Summer.

We will need to take a summer season photo of the Tree of Life, as we do for each new season on the first day of that season at 9:00 am in the morning from the same location each time.

This is a photo shot of the Tree of Life on the first day of Spring March 20th. Look for the summer photo shot and see the big difference.

This is the Southern Red Oak that is located near Nest Box number 3 on the Bluebird Trail.

She is a 170 plus years old and has a most beautiful shape as you will see with the June 21st Summer Photo shot.

Be sure to come back for a visit to see the difference that three months can make in the look of this beautiful tree.

On May 14th we had the Midway Covenant School 3rd grade class back for their second annual Green Meadows Preserve Park Bluebird Trail field trip. We had 33 3rd graders and 12 adult teachers or parents on the field trip. It was such a fun day for the kids, they had much fun.

A couple of photo's from the day's outing.
We enjoying having the school back for the second year.
                                                                                                 
 It was quite an adventure for all the boys and girls picking all the beautiful wild flowers. We saw a lot of birds this morning and especially Bluebirds.

I hope the kids will tell their parents about the trail and bring them out to walk the trail with them. It is a beautiful park!

On Saturday May 30th we had our scheduled and advertised in the Life Line section of the MDJ for our Walk and Talk Tour. We had 24 people show for the tour and they were very interested in learning more about birds and especially Bluebirds.

NOTE: We have one more scheduled Walk and Talk Tour on Saturday June 13th at 10:00 am and then we will discontinue the tours until the fall. The summer months are just to hot for me, the people taking the tours and especially the Bluebirds. They are just trying to get through the HOT summer months, laying eggs, raising and feeding babies until they are big enough to (fledge) leave the nest. Once they leave the nest the parents still feed them for thirty days until they learn to feed themselves. It is a fun sight to see 4 or 5 babies lined up on a tree limb crying for the parents to bring them food. Look for our Walk and Talk Tours to start up again in October on a monthly basis one or two times a month.                                     

                                 
I had the opportunity to speak to the Sierra Club Group this past week for their monthly meeting that was held at Life University. We had 24 very interested outdoor adventurous members in attendance.

I hope that I might have pecked their interest enough to get them to come out to the Bluebird Trail for a walk on the Trail.

Nest Watch - 2015 Quick Summary as of today!

 32 - Total Nest Sites being monitored

  46 - Total Nesting Attempts

159 - Total Eggs

122 - Total Young

  97 - Total Fledglings

Remember

 

Date and Time:

 

(Saturday June 13th 10:00AM - 12:00 Noon)

 

Be sure to bring your own drinking water, sun screen, hat/cap

insect/repellent and please wear comfortable shoes

for walking the 2.3 mile easy trail.

 

Any Questions: email me at jimbearden@bellsouth.net

 

Green Meadows Preserve Park Bluebird Trail,

Where Birds Come to Life!

 

Thanks for joining us along the Trail.....Jim B