PGC Selling Bluebird Nesting Boxes

HARRISBURG – If you are interested in helping wildlife in your own backyard, the Pennsylvania Game Commission now is selling bluebird nesting boxes at its Harrisburg headquarters at 2001 Elmerton Avenue. The boxes sell for $7, and customers can select from assembled boxes or kits that can be assembled as a wood-working project.

“Bluebirds are early nesters, so now is the time put up new nest boxes, as well as to clean and repair existing boxes,” said Dan Brauning, Game Commission Wildlife Diversity chief. “These bluebird boxes enable Pennsylvanians to help wildlife in a natural way.

“Also, building nesting boxes is a great project for individuals, families or civic organizations interested in wildlife. These box designs are proven to attract bluebirds and other species, including tree swallows and house wrens.”

Bluebirds live in open country, and are a beautiful songbird native to Pennsylvania. Bluebirds are cavity nesters and have become less common due to a lack of suitable nest sites. Many nest sites have been lost through changing land-use practices, as well as to urban and suburban sprawl. But the introductions of house sparrows and starlings in 1851 and 1890 have been the primary reasons for the bluebirds’ decline.

The bluebird boxes offered by the Game Commission include an opening that is the prescribed one-and-one-half inches in diameter. This precludes starlings from being able to enter. However, house sparrows still will enter the boxes, particularly those placed in close proximity to houses. If this occurs, the house sparrow nests should be removed immediately. If it happens repeatedly, consider moving the next box to another, and preferably more open, location.

Boxes should be erected on a free-standing pole three to five feet above the ground – facing south, if possible – and facing a nearby tree or fence where young birds can safely land on their initial flights from the box. To reduce predation and competition from other species, no perch should be placed on the box; bluebirds do not need one. Boxes placed in pairs, about 20 feet apart, may help reduce competition from swallows.

The Game Commission’s Howard Nursery has been manufacturing bluebird nest boxes and box kits for more than a quarter century. Each year, about 9,000 boxes are manufactured there and sold or provided to Pennsylvanians to help bluebirds. That annual influx of new nest boxes helps ensure Pennsylvania remains a “keystone state” in bluebird conservation.

Sales will continue while supplies last, and office hours are Monday-Friday from 7:45 a.m. until 4 p.m. The Game Commission’s headquarters is at 2001 Elmerton Ave., just off the Progress Avenue exit of Interstate 81 in Harrisburg. To order by phone, call the Game Commission’s Harrisburg office at 1-888-888-3459. If ordering by phone, shipping and handling costs will apply depending on how many boxes are ordered.

PGC photo