Walk and Talk Tour this Saturday the 7th

Don't forget the Walk and Talk Tour this coming Saturday morning the 7th  @ 10:00 am that was changed from Thursday the 5th. Bring water to drink and maybe a hat would be good as the weather is getting pretty HOT between 10:00 am and 12:00 noon. We will meet behind the red barn west of the community garden around 9:45 am so we can get started with the Talk and Tour by 10:00 am.

Photo's provided by lady on 5/24/14 tour 

Our final tour before the HOT summer month's begin will be on Tuesday June 24th. The first day of summer officially is Saturday June 21st, so we will already be into summer by a few days.

I was on the Bluebird Trail for 4 hours yesterday checking all the Nest Boxes for nest, eggs and babies. Cleaning out the boxes that the young babies had already fledged, so it would be clean and ready for the next bird family to build a nest and raise their young. This is a beautiful ongoing cycle during the nesting season of March through August.

 

I decided it was the best day to check all the boxes, as I think it will be the coolest day of the week for us. It is always exciting for me when checking the boxes, am I going to find a nest, what kind of bird is it, will I find eggs or will the eggs be hatched and I will find babies. The next time will the babies be big, fully feathered or fledged already? If  you are a bird person, this is all exciting stuff.

In the recent blog post on Sunday the 1st day of June, the 2014 Quick Summary Data numbers were very distorted when they come up on the iPhone or cell phones in general. I have new Data numbers for you and laid out in a little different way.

Total Nest Sites: = 25

Total Nesting Attempts: = 49

Total Eggs: = 103

Total Young: = 125

Total Fledglings: = 78

 Green Meadows Preserve Bluebird Trail,

Where Birds Come to Life!

 

Thanks for joining us along the Trail

..... Jim B

Another Tour Date Change for June

Spring Photo of Tree of Life

Sorry for having to make another change to one of our published Tour date's coming up in June. Due to a very busy June schedule for me, the Saturday June 21st Walk and Talk Tour has been changed.

The new date is Tuesday June 24th @ 10:00 am to 12:00 pm. Sorry if this has caused any inconvenience for anyone wishing to take the Bluebird Trail Tour.

We will not be leading any Walk and Talk Tours during the HOT summer month's. The birds are busy laying their eggs and raising their young birds and just trying to get through the HOT summer month's.

Feel free to walk the trail on your own during the summer if you wish, hoping you  will see some Bluebirds along the trail during your walk. 

We will be posting a fall Walk and Talk Tour schedule soon, that will start again in October of this year.

A very aggressive and painful sting

We have had a few of these predictors, but nothing like we had last year. I was stung three different times on the right hand and through my glove I must say trying to remove these guys from the nest boxes.

During the early spring I read about someone having success by treating the inside top part of the nest box with a bar of Ivory soap. I treated all 25 nest boxes with the soap and so far it has helped a lot in helping to keep the wasp from building nest in the boxes.  

This week I will be checking all 25 Nest Boxes again to make sure all is going well with the nest sites. This Data is over a week old now, but the following is an update along the Bluebird Trail.

                                                   2014 Quick Summary                                        

 

25                    37                  93                    133                    46

                     
         Nest Sites   Nesting Attempts   Eggs              Young            Fledglings

 

 

Until Next Blog Posting:

 

Green Meadows Preserve Bluebird Trail, Where Birds Come to Life!

 

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

 



Walk & Talk Tour Date Change

Note: Date Change

Due to a conflict of events on the same date, we find it necessary to change the Tour date on Thursday June 5th @ 10:00am to Saturday June 7th @ 10:00 am. I hope this has not caused any inconvenience for anyone wishing to be a part of the Walk & Talk Tour.

A Very Busy Beginning Of The New Nesting Season

March as been such a wonderful busy month already with Nest building activities as well as many special groups and talks along and about the Bluebird Trail.

The Power Of MDJ Newspaper Article

The February 22nd Walk and Talk Tour was a huge success in the large number of people who showed up for the Tour. To all of you, thank you for coming out to the Green Meadows Bluebird Trail. Goes to show you the power of an excellent  newspaper article that ran the week before in the Monday MDJ.

I was out of town on this date, in Denver to see the elder of our two daughter's for her birthday and of course to see our grand daughter Avery James. I owe a big thank you to two of my good gardening friends Mike and Vicki and her husband Victor for guiding this very big and busy group tour. To Victor in his great help in finding places to put all those cars, I don't think the Green Meadows Preserve Park has seen that many cars at one time since it became a park in 2008.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

     Thanks to Vicki for these two photo's of the group as they were heading out on the trail for the tour.

I am very please to say the Bluebird Trail has been very successful in introducing so many different types of groups and people to this beautiful park. We have so many individuals who come out for the tours, many that never knew the location or that it was a county park.

We now are getting a lot of requests for hiking groups, school field trips, garden club groups, photography groups and of course birder's. We hope that many of the these visitors will come back on their own and walk the trails, sit under the tree of life and take a break and just enjoy the beauty of having this beautiful park right here in west cobb. Thanks to all of you who have been big supporters of the Bluebird Trail.

Green Meadows Preserve Bluebird Trail, Where Birds Come to Life!

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

Please Join Us for The Bluebird Trail Walk and Talk Tours!

You Can Help! Become a Friend and Supporter of the Bluebird Trail  in West Cobb at the Green Meadows Preserve Park, located at 3780 Dallas Highway, Powder Springs, GA 30127.

25 Bluebird Nest Boxes have been sponsored and placed along the 2.3 mile trail within the 112 acres of open pasture, meadows and trees. This will help us support and grow the at risk Bluebird population.


One of our many feed stations.

This is one of the special feed stations that have been placed along the trail for feeding small birds, which include the song bird, the Eastern Bluebird. This helps us cut down on the cost of food by not feeding all the larger birds along the trail, there is plenty of other food for them in the Park.

We presently have seven of these feed stations up, they have been sponsored by people who wish to be a Friend and Supporter of the Bluebird Trail.

We have three more feed stations that we would like to place along the balance of the trail, each feed station is positioned to support 3 or 4 Nest Box locations. This makes the food source close and available during the nesting season. The parents feed their young, each baby bird twice an hour while they are in the nest box developing, to become a young Bluebird. To sponsor a feed station, the cost is $150.00 for each feed station, this can be done by individuals or by more than one person going in to sponsor a feed station. All the proceeds go to support the Bluebird Trail. We also welcome sponsors to help with the cost of supporting the Bluebird Trail by making contributions.

Come see our Tree of Life!

Make your checks payable to MGVOCC/
Green Meadows Community Garden

(Master Gardener Volunteers of Cobb County)

(We are a non-profit 501(c)3 organization
so your donation is tax deductible) 

Mail your sponsorship to:

 

Jim Bearden

1648 Oakford Court

           Marietta, GA 30064

 



We welcome your attendance at one or all of our scheduled

educational series,

"Bluebird Trail Walk and Talk Tours"

 

Dates and Times 

 

 Saturday May 24th,

 

Saturday Jun 7th, Saturday Jun 21st

 

All Tours: Start At 10:00 AM and End By 11:30 AM/12:00 Noon

 

 

Be sure to bring your own drinking water, insect spray/repellent, sunscreen and wear a hat if needed and comfortable shoes for walking the 2.3 mile

Bluebird Trail.

 

 

For questions: Call Jim B (cell) 404-202-8755 or jimbearden@bellsouth.net

Follow us on the Bluebird Trail Blog http://bluebirdtrail.blogspot.com/

 

Green Meadows Bluebird Trail, Where Birds Come to Life!

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

 

 



The Wild Week of Winter in Georgia

We had quite the week of weather, we living in Marietta, GA aren't use to having. It caught most of us off guard, including myself. I have lived and driven in most every state that has major snow and cold winter's, without ever to date having an auto accident. Not this year and of all places in Marietta, GA on my way to get my hair cut, then a walk in the park at the Green Meadows Preserve Bluebird Trail.

Well I never made it to my appointment for my most expensive hair cut, that I never got. I also didn't make it to the Bluebird Trail for my walk and to feed the birds. Instead I sat on the side of the road, on Dallas Hwy waiting for AAA tow truck for four hours, which never got to me. It took a good friend 3 hrs. to come 4 miles to give me a ride home. I know many of you have much bigger stories to tell about your day on Tuesday January 28th, 2014.

My 1998 Toyota 4 Runner

This "Yota" as we called her was my baby, I had put everyone of the 176,000 miles on her. I was going for the big 250,000 mile mark. I am sorry to say that will not be happening, I was informed yesterday that she is totaled and will be put to rest. So when you drive by the Green Meadows Preserve Community Garden/Bluebird Trail, you can no longer know if I am there by seeing my 1998 Toyota 4 Runner parked by the fence.

I am writing all of this so I can tell you how sorry I am that we had to cancel the scheduled Walk and Talk Tour for the Bluebird Trail on Thursday January 30th at 10:00 am. The cause was the bad weather on Thursday the 30th, not the fact that I was home sick about loosing my good friend the Toyota. The good news is that no one else was involved in the accident and I was not hurt.

Please read the next post to our blog for all the correct dates and times for the coming Walk and Talk Tours for the Green Meadows Preserve Bluebird Trail.

 

Green Meadows Preserve Bluebird Trail,Where Birds Come to Life!

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