You might imagine that a scientific community that can splice genes, clone life and put machines on the Martian surface would know all about the life of our everyday bird species. You would be wrong.
Many facets of the lives of perhaps every bird species in the world could use additional study, including bluebirds. We learn this from the life history monograph series published as “The Birds of North America (BNA).”
Each monograph, an illustrated 8.5- by 11-inch booklet, discusses all aspects of the birds’ lives — appearance, distribution, migration, habitat, food habits, sounds, behavior, breeding, population status, conservation and management, and priorities for future research.
The latter section tells us what at the time of publication wasn’t known.
Knowledge gaps exist for Eastern bluebirds, for example. This isn’t a critical point, but interesting given that the species is common, with adults and chicks easily accessible for a wide variety of research projects.
Eastern bluebirds are obligate cavity nesters, with a cavity of some kind necessary to nesting success. Enter the bird house. Nest-box networks — bluebird trails — cover eastern North America.
Bluebirds are good research candidates because they can be handled if necessary. The females are so loyal to their nests and eggs that they sometimes can be picked off the nest and held for examination.
People tending the boxes sometimes remove the chicks to check for parasites, often blowfly larvae. Pick them up, remove the larvae if found, put the bird back in the nest. I’ve not known of any residual impact.
