Contact:

SANDY PERRY, COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER
PHONE: 908-234-1225, EXT. 104
SANDY@NJCONSERVATION.ORG

A friend to bluebirds in the Pinelands

CHATSWORTH, NJ, Aug. 14, 2007 – Nels Anderson eases his blue pickup truck slowly along the sand roads of the Franklin Parker Preserve in the heart of the New Jersey Pinelands, careful not to run over any turtles crossing or snakes sunning themselves on a warm summer morning.

At regular intervals he stops the truck and climbs out to inspect each of the 40 birdhouses he has built and erected on critter-proof poles. As he opens one box and peers inside, a smile lights his face. “Four bluebird chicks,” he reports.

In another box, Anderson spots a solitary bluebird egg in a nest that one week earlier had none. “The female lays one every morning, so when I come back next week there should be more,” he explains. In other boxes he finds signs of nesting tree swallows and chickadees. And in some there are wasps, whose papery nests he removes gingerly to avoid being stung.

Back in his truck, Anderson meticulously logs the results of his weekly bird box inspections into a spiral notebook. Hours later, when he returns to his home in Indian Mills, Burlington County, he will enter the data into a computer spreadsheet he uses to track the March-through-September nesting season at the Franklin Parker Preserve.

Anderson, 67, who retired in April after a career as a General Electric plastics field engineer, is one of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation’s more unusual volunteers. A bluebird lover, he began building, installing and monitoring boxes in the nearby Wharton State Forest about 10 years ago after inheriting the job from another volunteer. Earlier this year, he sought and received NJCF permission to do the same in the 14-square-mile Franklin Parker Preserve in Chatsworth.

Using donated lumber, Anderson builds bird boxes according to his own time-tested design to make sure their occupants are well ventilated, yet protected from rain and predators. When choosing where to install the birdhouses, he picks open areas with tall trees nearby. “Location is everything,” he said, repeating a real estate adage more often applied to humans. “Bluebirds like a tree nearby.”

The result of Anderson’s first-year effort was an upsurge in the number of bluebirds at the preserve. As of mid-August, a total of 81 bluebirds, 45 tree swallows and 17 chickadees were fledged from his bird boxes.

“That’s a huge accomplishment, a huge number of babies successfully leaving the nest,” said Dr. Emile DeVito, NJCF’s manager of science and stewardship. “Nels has probably doubled our population in one year. He’s an incredible volunteer – a hard worker, dedicated, totally committed to making a difference.”

According to DeVito, bluebirds were once common in New Jersey but became “very scarce” in the late 1960s and early 1970s due to pesticide use, changes in agricultural practices and competition from starlings and other birds.

Thanks to the work of nature lovers like Anderson, bluebirds are rebounding in many parts of the state. DeVito said the Franklin Parker Preserve is now producing a surplus of young bluebirds, allowing the population to expand outward to surrounding areas.

In addition to the satisfaction he gets from helping bluebirds, Anderson relishes the solitude he finds during his three-hour excursions through the former cranberry bogs of the Franklin Parker Preserve. “Generally I’m here all alone,” he said. “It’s so nice, so peaceful.”

Although open to the public for hiking, fishing, kayaking and nature study, the Franklin Parker Preserve is closed to motor vehicles other than those driven by NJCF staff and volunteers working on land management and research projects.

A private, non-profit organization, the NJCF has preserved over 100,000 acres of natural areas and farmland in New Jersey, from the Highlands to the Pine Barrens to the Delaware Bayshore. For more information on NJCF, visit the organization’s website at www.njconservation.org.