Mountain Bluebird Trails Conservation Society president Jim Leitch works on a nest box.
The Mountain Bluebird Trails Conservation Society is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2024.
Mountain bluebird conservation in southern Alberta was pioneered by the late Duncan Mackintosh of Lethbridge, who started setting out nest boxes in spring of 1974.
It all began in fall 1973 when a student from Manitoba attending the Lethbridge College brought a bluebird nest box and presented on the impacts of habitat loss to the Lethbridge Naturalists’ Society, which is now known as Nature Lethbridge.
From this meeting the Lethbridge Naturalists’ Society Bluebird Project was created with Mackintosh as the co-ordinator. He was provided with $14.35 for supplies to construct 40 nest boxes based on the Manitoba design.
The naturalists were motivated to take action in response to the immediate impacts that starlings and English sparrows had after their introduction in North America.
The new species quickly became fierce predators and competitors of native nest-cavity bird species like mountain bluebirds.
The decline of prairie grasslands and increasing habitat loss due to disturbance from agriculture compounded pressures on native bird species.
Mackintosh’s initial nest box design was based on blueprints primarily focused on the eastern bluebird. As a result, early efforts were not as successful as he had hoped.
After careful observation, Mackintosh recognized that the nest boxes were not ideal for the mountain bluebird and set about to redesign them for our region.
The new design had a larger hole size, larger floor space, and thicker plywood walls. This greatly increased the effectiveness of the nest boxes in supporting mountain bluebirds.
In 1978, the North American Bluebird Society formed and Duncan Mackintosh was designated as a trail operator manager. That same year he obtained a masters permit from the Canadian government and began banding bluebirds.
By 1984, just 10 years after starting the bluebird project, Mackintosh’s annual report indicated 1,390 nest boxes were placed; 304 occupied by mountain bluebirds producing 1,931 bluebird eggs of which 1,797 successfully fledged.
Mackintosh and 33 volunteers banded 1,293 mountain bluebird fledglings and 58 adult bluebirds.
This core group of volunteers called itself mountain bluebird trails. Their efforts extended beyond southern Alberta into Montana.
Mackintosh led the Alberta cohort, which was officially renamed Mountain Bluebird Trails Conservation Society in 1995 when they became a registered charity.
At the time of his passing in 1995, Mackintosh and more than 50 volunteers were looking after thousands of nest boxes spread out over a 31,080 square kilometre area across southwestern Alberta.
Despite their best efforts, it is recently estimated that there are 2.9-billion fewer birds in Canada and the U.S. than in 1970. Bird population decline is not limited to endangered or species at risk, but includes common species like sparrows, warblers, and bluebirds.
In an attempt to slow or perhaps reverse this decline, the mountain bluebird Trails Conservation Society continues to install and maintain over 2,700-plus mountain bluebird nest boxes throughout southern Alberta.
Over the past 50 years Mountain Bluebird Trails Conservation Society volunteers have been dedicated to studying, conserving, and helping restore the natural range of the mountain bluebird.
The Mountain Bluebird Trails Conservation Society works to bring together trail monitors from across southern Alberta — spanning Medicine Hat and Cypress Hills area in the east to Pincher Creek and Oldman River headwaters in the west, and north from the Calgary Area Nestbox Monitors Society to the southern Montana bluebird trails.
“Our team of 110+ volunteers maintain a vast network of mountain bluebird trails, increasing habitat and restoring the natural range of these beautiful birds,” said Jim Leitch, president of the Mountain Bluebird Trails Conservation Society. “We rely on support from our members and the community to continue to build, renovate, and maintain cavity nest box habitat that supports thousands of bluebirds each year.”
Membership to the society is free. Volunteers are always needed and encouraged.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary the society encourages past, present, and future supporters to make a $50 contribution to the Mountain Bluebird Trails Conservation Society Endowment Fund at the Community Foundation of Lethbridge and Southwestern Alberta at canadahelps.org/en/dn/72048 or by cheque to the Community Foundation, No. 50, 1202 Second Ave. S, Lethbridge
A spring bluebird trail orientation is set for Saturday June 1 at Helen Schuler Nature Centre at 9 a.m.
