Bluebird Counts

When I was a young lad growing up in Mattituck, on the North Fork, I knew only a handful of wild bird species; namely, the robin, catbird, seagull, bobwhite, common crow, blue jay and house sparrow, for starters. I knew more of the pen-raised birds we eat, such as chickens, turkeys and ducks, than wild ones.

In 1940, at 5 years of age, one of the first movies I went to was “The Bluebird” with Shirley Temple, who was about the same age. I would hear the baritone Jan Peerce singing “The Bluebird of Happiness” occasionally whenever my mother powered up the Victrola. I didn’t see a bluebird in the flesh until I walked through the woods of Ralph Tuthill’s dairy farm in the “Oregon” part of Mattituck, which we moved to in 1947. It flew into and out of a hole in an oak tree 5 feet above the ground.

In 1987, the Natural Resource Department and the rudiments of the South Fork Natural History Museum & Nature Center, or SOFO, joined together to bring back bluebirds from the one existing pair in northern Springs, and perhaps a pair or two in Hither Woods, Montauk. The two entities put up special nest boxes constructed by Kim Hicks of Montauk that were nailed to the tops of sturdy wooden posts at the edges of the field. It worked.

But as the system grew older, some of us moved away, or our attentions waned. Joe Giunta came along in the nick of time and began taking care of those boxes and counting the bluebird fledglings at East Hampton Airport and elsewhere on the South Fork, in earnest.

This year, he counted 137 fledglings in the airport boxes, second only to his airport count of 143 in 2012.

Years later, raccoon guards were added, and when flying squirrels invaded the South Fork from west of the Shinnecock Canal, several posts with boxes were moved away from the woods’ edge, beyond the squirrels’ soaring range.

The airport lots comprise the biggest meadow in the town, and each year the combined fields yield the most bluebird young of any spot on Long Island that is equal in size. One wonders what the numbers of successful nestings would become if the planes and helicopters that now use the airport space were no longer landing and taking off.

For the past 18 years, Joe, the miracle worker, has been in charge of the town’s bluebird production, with a little help from North Haven and Bridgehampton, accounting for a grand total of 1,476 successful fledglings. The airport has been at the lead since 1987, and its present manager, Jim Brundage, has been cheering on those efforts for the bulk of that time.

In the early years, before Jim came upon the scene, a federal employee, perhaps the same officer who strongly advised the officials at JFK to get rid of the gulls, told the town to remove all of the nest boxes. The town left the boxes intact and in place, in defiance of the fed order, and the local bluebird population has prospered greatly ever since.

Not every year has been a success, however. In 2015, for some reason not a single bluebird fledge was reported. Yet in the following year, 100 bluebird fledges were recorded. And, thereafter, except for a low of 93 in 2018, more than 100 fledges were recorded each year.

Several other spots watched over by Mr. Giunta contribute to upping the local bluebird population. This past year, the second-highest number of fledges was recorded on Barcelona Neck, around the golf course there. In all, 12 sites, including the North Haven one, were monitored by Joe; four of them — Quail Hill in Amagansett, Camp Hero in Montauk, Napeague and SOFO in Bridgehampton — did not produce a single bluebird fledgling.

An added bonus: Some of the nest boxes are used by tree swallows, which catch mosquitoes and other flying insects to satisfy their dietary needs and those of their young. As an aside, 82 tree swallow young fledged at the airport this year, while the total fledges of these hole-nesting tree swallows amounted to 238.

A third hole-nester and another insect eater, the house wren, fledged five at the airport and 71 young altogether, while, finally, a fourth hole-nester, the black-capped chickadee, fledged eight. One would not expect the latter bird, which prefers pine habitats, to use the airport for reproductive purposes.

We can only hope that next year and the years following will be as successful, and that Mr. Giunta will stick around and continue to provide the backup the bluebirds require.