How does a Norco program grow and have impact beyond Norco. With some perseverance and patience…into other parts of Worcester County.
Kids Day 2017 (yes 2017) featured blue bird nesting box project for parents and kids, where over 50 were built for participants to take home and put around their home.
Norco member and volunteer Ken Carlson had an idea and saw a community need for nesting boxes in Worcester county. Ken being familiar with Spencer Abbey with their acres and acres of open fields observed their nesting boxes were at the end of their useful life. After several discussions, Wayne Adams rallied the idea forward, secured 800 sq ft of rough cut lumber from Hull Lumber in Pomfret CT (a common advertiser in the WCL Newsletter and generous, avid supporter of sportsmen), contacted the national bluebird society for guidance on where, when, and how to maintain nesting boxes; contact MA Wildlife bird biologist for their regional guidance, and several scout troops for community service and education. Outreach efforts with local hardware stores for donated poles and hardware went unanswered. After several attempts to coordinate a project with a Scout Venturing Group, time kept marching on through the fall and winter… Ken persisted with Wayne….”hey, what about those nesting boxes”. After the snow melted this 2018….Wayne cut and built 25 nesting boxes; made use of wood screws that Home Depot donated for Kids Day 2018. Ken was resourceful to find free poles (to last a century) to mount the boxes on….game -on, lets gets these mounted and installed before the blue bird migration north. On Saturday April 28th, Ken had a work team assembled to dig holes and have Brother Adam give locations to install the boxes on the property. One volunteer had his dog along for the day…and was exhausted running endlessly all morning through the open fields. Volunteers included Ken Carlson, Tom Berube, Ronnie, Billy, Brother Adam and Wayne Adams.
A few pictures along the way – enjoy. Anyone wanting to repeat a project here in the county, reach out to Wayne (email webmaster@norco.club) or Ken. There is wood left-over to take on new projects, be they bat houses, wood duck boxes, or nesting boxes. Blue bird nesting boxes need yearly maintenance to remove the nest. For those who walk/hunt/hike around the High Ridge WMA, there is a community group that has installed and maintains the blue bird nesting boxes. A few left-over nesting boxes from the Spencer Abbey project are being brought over to MA Wildlife in Westboro for their open space. For the Kids Day 2018, 20 birdhouses were built along with 30 bat houses for local community/household installation.
