Journal of the North American Bluebird Society
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LUEBIRD BJournal of the North American Bluebird Society Spring 2009 Vol. 31 No. 2 $5.00 Table of Contents Al Larson Spring Message to our Affiliate Organizations -Brian Swanson ....................................................................................... 1 From the President - Jonathan Ridgeway ............................................................................................................................... 2 From the Managing Editor - Scott Gillihan ............................................................................................................................. 5 From the Membership Committee - Sherry Linn ................................................................................................................ 6 Report of NABS Grants Awarded - Anne Sturm ................................................................................................................. 7 Bluebird Widows, Widowers, and Orphans - Bet Zimmerman ......................................................................................... 8 Tales of Nestbox Trails - Gary Manfready ............................................................................................................................ 11 You Are What You Eat - Erin O’Brien .................................................................................................................................... 14 NABS Notices ........................................................................................................................................................................... 17 One Giant Leap for a Prothonotary Warbler - Bob Peak ............................................................................................... 18 The First Bluebird of Spring - Bob Tamm ............................................................................................................................. 21 Cowbirds and Unsuspecting Cavity Nesters - Patrick Ready ......................................................................................... 22 Research Review - Scott W. Gillihan ....................................................................................................................................... 24 Affiliates of the North American Bluebird Society .......................................................................................................... 27 Cover photo: Dave Kinneer graciously donated the use of this photograph of a busy pair of Eastern Bluebirds. You can admire more of Dave’s photos at www.pbase.com/uncledave Spring Message to our Affiliate Organizations I hope all of you have September 9-13 marked on your 2009 Bluebird calendars and are planning on joining us at the 31st Annual Bluebird/Sialia (ISSN 0890-7021) is NABS Conference. The registration material was in the last published quarterly by North American issue of the “Bluebird” and is on line at the NABS website, Bluebird Society, P.O. Box 43, Miamiville, www.nabluebirdsociety.org. If you register before May 15th, OH 45147 there is a $10 saving. Printed by Colorado Printing Co. We want to welcome the Florida Bluebird Society as our Grand Junction, CO newest Affiliate. They have just registered as a non-profit corporation with the State of Florida. Managing Editor: Scott Gillihan [email protected] Speaking of new Affiliates, we have had a flurry of interest from around the country asking about joining our NABS Subscription is included with membership family. Inquiries have come from individuals who want in NABS. Write for information about bulk to start a brand new organization and from existing quantities. Make checks and money orders conservation-related societies. I believe that these folks are payable to NABS in U.S. funds. recognizing the advantages of belonging to an international organization that binds together like-minded individuals Issues are dated Spring, Summer, Fall, and in the recovery of Bluebirds and other cavity-nesting birds. Winter and appear approximately on the NABS becomes a member of all new Affiliates and we 15th day of January, April, July, and October. encourage Affiliates, Audubon Societies, and other bird The deadline for submission of materials is clubs interested in Bluebird conservation to join NABS. three months prior to the publication date. Members of an Affiliate can take advantage of the discount offered to become NABS members. Once a member of NABS Letters to the editor and articles in this there is a discount when buying mealworms. publication express the opinions and/or positions of the authors. Letters may be The response to our website based Affiliate calendar has edited for length and content. Published been most encouraging. More and more Affiliates are articles do not necessarily represent the sending information about their annual meetings to Greg opinions and positions of the Officers, Beavers who then posts them on the NABS website. The Directors, or other representatives of NABS. 35th Anniversary Celebration by the Mountain Bluebird Trails Affiliate in Montana will be an exciting event. I plan to General questions may be addressed to: attend. I also want to recognize Bluebirds Across Nebraska, [email protected] which is hosting their 15th Annual Conference. or call 812-988-1876 during office hours (12- 3 pm EST Mon-Fri). I hope to see you at a Bluebird get-together soon. The North American Bluebird Society is a Brian Swanson non-profit education, conservation and research NABS Vice President for Affiliate Relations organization that promotes the recovery of bluebirds and other native cavity-nesting bird species in North America. www.nabluebirdsociety.org Spring 2009 1 Bluebird From the President Jonathan Ridgeway Greetings of peace - a legal obligation to file annual reports if our entity wanted to continue to exist, yet as I have written Detailed written policy and procedure manuals before, repeatedly too many of our Officers did not are extremely valuable management tools for any know this requirement. As a result of not knowing organization. Not surprisingly though, it is more what had to be done, our legal status was forfeited common for profit-making business enterprises in 1983, 1986 and 2005 and had to be revived in to have them than volunteer organizations. Most 1984, 1998 and 2008. This might not have happened nonprofit boards function with a far less formal if there had been a manual that pointed out the structure and often, their policies are not even need to file the annual reports. Another issue comes written down. I would like to articulate some of the up repeatedly when other bluebird societies and fundamental reasons why I have considered it so individuals ask for copies of our membership mailing important for NABS to adopt a variety of particular list. It is extremely important that we not give it to policies and accumulate them into a collection or them, no matter how valid their purpose might be, manual as they are being created. I also feel that because we have made an irrevocable commitment documenting the procedures is important but I to our members that their privacy will be protected. believe there are reasons why the procedures have to I believe it is essential that this mandatory policy be be relegated to a secondary priority while the policies passed on from each generation of Officers and Board are already so overdue. members to the next so they know the seriousness of the reliance entrusted to them. NABS is a very large, complex, and spread-out organization with a reasonably narrow purpose On this topic, I believe it is applicable to mention and mission. Most of the people involved with some raffle tickets you may have received or you NABS are a lot more interested in nature and birds, may be going to receive for prizes to be awarded at particularly bluebirds, than they are in management our NABS2009 convention that the Bluebird Society of an organizational structure, per se. It is a common of Pennsylvania will be hosting. Regardless of how assumption that if people know enough about the the mailing may appear, the NABS labels were never subject, the object will take care of itself, but that outside the direct custody of our Board members. is not necessarily so. An impressive number of And while I am mentioning the raffle, I encourage our members have been building and monitoring as many of you as are able to purchase those tickets. nestbox trails for three or four decades, even longer There are some wonderful prizes and the proceeds than NABS has existed, but the organization does will benefit NABS, BSP, and the success of the event. not foster activists to participate and grow in the leadership and administration the same way. In so The main reason to have a policy and procedure many cases, every time new leadership is elected, manual is so the mission and purpose of the a significant portion of the organization’s memory organization can be clearly defined, as can the roles is lost with the ones who leave. If policies and and responsibilities of the individuals who lead procedures are documented, the choices and solutions and participate in its programs. Such a manual identified by each set of leaders can be handed down should stand as the exclusive source of discretion to their successors. This is not to say that a new team and should coherently spell out the relationships will be bound by the decisions of their predecessors, between the Officers, the Board, the committees, the only that they will be able to learn from the earlier membership, and the