Nature Bats Last...Cavities & Critters
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Roll on west 8.9 miles from the cattleguard at the mouth of Poudre Canyon, turn right on Poudre River Road at the firehouse, then another quick right, follow your GPS downstream to the white house on your left with a green recycled plastic nestbox on a utility pole...pull over and park along the road.
Welcome to Poudre Park!
Don't worry. The mountain folk up here are real friendly, muskets are rusty, powder is wet and most of them can't shoot straight anyway.
A tidbit of history before we talk critters. This little unincorporated hamlet was first subdivided and platted and named Poudre Park in 1919. The first homesteader put down stakes in Poudre Park back in 1911, although a feller named Horace Huleatt made his home up a valley northwest of here in Hewlett's Gulch (same name but different spelling) in the late 1870's. As you turn onto Poudre River Road, the large brown building on your left was the Poudre Park School built in the mid-1920's but now serves as the Community Center. The first fire station was built in 1959 and is housed in the smaller building in front of the Community Center.
Now, let's talk critters. Poudre Park has been home to a wide variety of critters through the years. The owners of this white house have seen mountain lions, black bears, mule deer, red fox, raccoons, pack rats, pine & tassle-eared & red fox squirrels, cottontail rabbits, bats, mice and quite a variety of birds in their yard. They have also seen bighorn sheep, coyotes and rock squirrels out back across the river.
On with the birdie stuff. One rather select group of birds we particularly enjoy are the cavity nesters...they nest in holes in trees and fall into two groups. You got your PRIMARY CAVITY NESTERS that can actually excavate their own cavities (woodpeckers). You also have your SECONDARY CAVITY NESTERS that cannot make a cavity (from wrens to chickadees to swallows to bluebirds to screech owls to wood ducks...and, many more). So, one group wiles their time away creating their own cavities while the other group flies around looking for cavities with a neon vacancy sign flashing.
O.k., we get that. But, here's the kicker. Combining clean farming practices with cutting standing dead trees (snags) and with old wooden fenceposts being replaced by metal fenceposts, there are fewer and fewer vacant cavities out there to be had. It's well within reason to suspect fewer cavities results in fewer nests which results in fewer eggs which results in fewer nestlings which results in fewer adults flying around looking for those neon lights. And yup, the end result is declining populations of secondary cavity nesters in some areas.
The folks that hung this nestbox up have been hanging nestboxes up for years. They have held over 3,000 eggs and/or nestlings from their nestboxes for research purposes. Discard what your Grandma perhaps told you as a youngin', "Don't touch those baby birds 'cause the parents will smell you on them and leave them to die!" Birds don't smell.
Do nestboxes really work? These folks report the following critters using their nestboxes: nuthatches, chickadees, wrens, bluebirds, swallows, woodpeckers, kingfishers, owls, ducks, mice, and even a weasel!
This nestbox simply simulates a natural cavity out in nature. Feel free to walk up to it and open the right side of the box and take a peek inside. If there is a nest but no birds around, you can still identify who checked in. A house wren makes a stick nest, a bluebird makes a grass nest, and a swallow makes a grass nest with duck feathers to cover the eggs...weird, huh?
Leave it to Mother Nature to use duck feathers to cover swallow eggs, after all, she still bats last.
***PLEASE STAY ON THE ROAD AND OFF PRIVATE PROPERTY...THE CACHE IS NEAR THE NESTBOX BUT NOT IN IT AND CAN BE GRABBED FROM THE ROAD***
Log only...thank you and have fun!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
OEHPR FCEVATFGRRA BAPR FNAT, "FBZR SBYXF NER OBEA ZNQR GB JNIR GUR SYNT...BBBU GURL'ER ERQ, JUVGR, NAQ OYHR..."