In the early 1980s a group of volunteers, under the leadership of Betty Komarek, built and installed the first 15 nest boxes for the new bluebird trail at Birdsong Nature Center in southern Georgia.

Ms. Renkl, a contributing Opinion writer, reports from Nashville on flora, fauna, politics and culture in the American South. Of all the nest boxes in our yard, the Carolina chickadees always choose ...

Clean-out doors in the bluebird boxes at Hickory Grove Park were closed earlier in March. They were left open all winter to discourage deer mice and house sparrows from moving in. A few bluebirds hang ...

Q: I'm monitoring bluebird boxes in Adams. In the past three weeks, I've found a dead swallow in an empty nest box, then yesterday a dead wren in another. — Nancy S., Adams A: I have encountered this ...

Step 1: Randall Johnson cuts a hemlock board into six sections for a bluebird box. He said a 1X6 board, 8 feet in length, can make two boxes. Step 2: All the components of a bluebird box ready to be ...

There they were, bluebird houses on top of many of the fence posts that lined the road just west of Bickleton, the self-proclaimed Bluebird Capital of the World. It’s spring, and thousands of ...

The big excitement in our yard is that a pair of house wrens has set up house in our bluebird nest box. Vic and I got the nest box from Friends of Shipley Nature Center last year, but I put it up too ...

On a recent visit to Bethpage State Park, I went with Kathy Wegman, a retired environmental horticulturist, as she checked bluebird and tree swallow nest boxes. At the first bluebird nest box, a ...

I wasn’t a good landlord this past year. The tenants, however, faired seemingly well in their temporary spring and summer digs. This is what I was reminded of last weekend, while cleaning out and ...