“They can fly and they’re blue and they sometimes hide and they have sharp claws and beaks and their nests get stolen by other birds,” the 7-year-old boy said.
It’s that last fact - the stolen nests - that prompted Adam and his fellow Cub Scouts of Pack 4911 to put up bluebird nesting boxes on the Line Ranch in Missoula’s South Hills last week.
“I think it helps them to understand how people and nature can work together,” said Servheen, who also is grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a University of Montana forestry and conservation instructor.
Nationwide, bluebird numbers have declined markedly since the early 1900s because of a loss of habitat, which reduces the insects and berries that are their prime food sources, according to the nonprofit North American Bluebird Society.
Also, natural nesting cavities are lost when old trees are cut down and rotting fence posts are replaced by metallic ones.
Other threats include pesticide poisoning and the more aggressive house sparrow and European starling, both non-native species that outcompete the indigenous bluebird for natural nesting places.
Since the 1970s, bluebird numbers have started to rebound, as conservationists built hundreds of thousands of nest boxes nationwide, including in western Montana where mountain, western and eastern bluebirds are found, according to the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.
Bluebird populations in Montana plummeted in the 1930s, but they began to bounce back in the mid-1970s. Mountain Bluebird Trails, a Missoula-area nonprofit started by Art Aylesworth, has recorded more than 281,000 bluebird fledglings since 1974.
The group counted five fledglings a year in the mid-1970s, a number that skyrocketed to more than 21,000 by 2003. The recorded population dropped to about 11,000 last year, but that may be a result of weather conditions and other factors, said Kathy Heffernan, a spokeswoman for the group.
“It’s safe to say that bluebird numbers have increased in Montana since the 1970s,” she said.
As part of their conservation efforts, bluebird groups offer detailed instructions on how to collect data and to build, maintain and monitor nest boxes and bluebird trails, which are a series of nest boxes.
That’s what the Missoula Cub Scouts were doing last week, having assembled their bluebird boxes out of pine boards in Servheen’s home workshop for the second consecutive year.
The nine Scouts and their parents gathered Thursday evening at the top of Whitaker Drive and Rimel Road alongside the Line Ranch.
The Lines and two neighboring cattle-ranching families, the Rimels and Haydens, put more than 1,000 acres under conservation easements last year in an effort to preserve a rural way of life and a sanctuary for the birds, elk, bears and other wildlife on the edge of a fast-growing city.
The ranches’ rolling grasslands and woodlands create a stark boundary against the urban sprawl that has crept up the South Hills in recent years.
As the sun set over the Line Ranch, the Scouts, most of them first graders, collected their bluebird boxes.
They marched through cow manure, melting patches of snow and summer pastures.
Servheen and Chris Line, a third-generation rancher, screwed the boxes into fence posts as they went along.
Some of the posts had old bluebird boxes that had warped and weathered through the years.
“I think this instills conservation values in the boys,” said Line, who like Servheen has two sons in Pack 4911. “And my family has a real emotional connection to this land, so projects like this are important to us.”
As the boys raced ahead, tossing snowballs and dodging cow patties and chattering happily, two bluebirds appeared in the pasture.
The boys cried out: “Look, bluebirds!”
The birds flitted for a moment atop the grassland, two bright spots of color that disappeared when their young admirers got too close.
But they’ll be back, the boys knew, and they’ll have a place to call home.
Reach reporter John Cramer at (406) 523-5259 or by e-mail john.cramer@missoulian.com. Reach photographer Arthur Mouratidis at (406) 523-5270 or at arthur.mouratidis@missoulian.com.
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