Bluebird Trails/Nestbox Monitoring

Bluebird Nestbox Monitoring

Why Do We Monitor Bluebirds?

Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy supports the Virginia Bluebird Society in setting up and monitoring nestbox trails across the county. By monitoring the boxes, we collect information on our native cavity nesters, learn about their lives first hand and track population trends.

It’s wonderful to watch the birds build their nest, lay eggs, and fledge young. In addition to Bluebirds we often encounter Tree Swallows, Chickadees, Titmice and wrens. Surrounding habitat is what attracts these birds to nest in the area so it’s also a good chance to evaluate what the property has to offer.

How it Works

You can monitor at one of the public trails or at your own home trail. You can also help us build new trails and repair existing ones.

Public trail: Monitoring at our public trails is done in teams of four so that each person monitors about once per month, April though August. Each trail has a trail leader who creates the monitoring schedule, trains new monitors, identifies trail repairs and compiles the data at the end of the season and sends it in.

Home trail: Monitor your home trail once a week through the season, which is April through August. At the end of the season, compile the data and send it in.

Nestbox building/repairs and trail set up: A great project for scouts or school groups is to build and set up a Bluebird trail and then let us monitor them.  We also need help with repairing existing trails that need box replacement.

If you’d like to help with monitoring or maintenance, please sign up here. All levels of experience are welcome. Training will be provided.

Learn More

Use these links to learn more about Eastern Bluebirds and the Loudoun monitoring program.

• Loudoun Bluebird Notes online newsletter
• Helpful resources and tips for monitoring, along with forms you will need.
• Bluebird Trail monitoring data
• Fun facts about Bluebirds