Western Bluebird Reintroduction –Second Year Successes

Western Bluebird. Photo: Ashok Khosla

An American Bird Conservancy partnership project to return Western Bluebirds to one of their ancestral breeding territories on the San Juan Islands of northwestern Washington State is nearing completion of the second year of its five-year timeline, with a number of important advances.

The project got underway in the fall of 2006 (see Bird Conservation, Spring 2007 (pdf)), with support from the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund, in collaboration with the San Juan Preservation Trust, Ecostudies Institute, and San Juan Islands Audubon Society, plus many other local partners.

This year marked the first time in at least 40 years that a Western Bluebird that fledged on San Juan Island is known to have returned there to breed. The bird successfully paired and nested, providing an encouraging early indication of potential long-term success. The first translocation of Western Bluebird pairs with nestlings was also accomplished. Two pairs were taken from their breeding site 100 miles away at Fort Lewis Military Installation in Olympia, Washington, and placed in an aviary on San Juan for ten days while their young fledged. The adults and eight fledglings were subsequently released successfully.

Including these eight chicks, 21 bluebirds have fledged so far this year on San Juan, and four pairs are re-nesting, making up for an unseasonably cold start to the season that resulted in the complete loss of one nest with five young, and the loss of three young from another brood of four.

Project coordinator Bob Altman, ABC’s Northern Pacific Rainforest Bird Conservation Region Coordinator, commented: “Despite some nest losses due to record-setting cold weather, we were able to save several nests, and now with some pairs re-nesting, we hope to be able to successfully fledge approximately 30 young on San Juan Island this year.”