{"id":507,"date":"2015-05-13T20:47:10","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T20:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/sustainability\/?p=507"},"modified":"2015-05-13T20:49:13","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T20:49:13","slug":"bird-bee-bat-habitat-on-owus-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/?p=507","title":{"rendered":"Bird, Bee & Bat Habitat on OWU’s Campus"},"content":{"rendered":"

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House Wren\/Carolina Chickadee house installed on April 16, 2014 during a student event sponsored by\u00a0the Landscape Course Connection.\u00a0It now contains a Carolina Chickadee nest.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jayne Ackerman<\/strong> (OWU ’15, jjackerm@owu.edu), Blake Fajack<\/strong> (OWU OWU ’16, zbfajack@owu.edu) &\u00a0Dick Tuttle<\/strong>\u00a0(OWU ’73, ohtres@cs.com)<\/p>\n

Delaware County, Ohio, home of Ohio Wesleyan, is one of the fastest growing areas in the state\u00a0[1]. As the county grows, the amount of wildlife habitat is drastically decreased through fragmentation and other anthropogenic interferences. In order to mitigate the loss of habitat for wildlife we have began enhancing\u00a0wildlife habitat\u00a0across OWU\u2019s campus.<\/p>\n

A few species were selected in order to jump start OWU\u2019s involvement in rehabilitating habitat area within Delaware. Bats, birds, squirrels, and solitary bees are all\u00a0common area natives and were\u00a0targeted to boost ecosystem productivity due to their ecological importance [2][3][4].<\/p>\n

Methods and Results<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our original goal for the project was to build and place bat boxes on campus\u00a0since bats are in danger from habitat loss and important for pest control [19, 2]. We expanded\u00a0the project to include bird houses and bee hotels because of their ecological usefulness for seed (birds [17]) and pollen (bees [20, 21]) dispersal [3]. OWU Alumnus\u00a0Dick Tuttle\u00a0joined our project,\u00a0suggesting we build carolina wren nesting boxes and expand the project to include squirrel dens. Squirrels are important for tree growth and forest succession [4].<\/p>\n

Dick Tuttle\u00a0guided us on the construction of the\u00a0bird houses and locations to hang them. We summarized our proposed work in a proposal and\u00a0contacted OWU’s\u00a0Buildings and Grounds (B&G) to get formal approval for the project [5]. Our proposal\u00a0included general ecological support for the habitat enhancements, plans for the shelters (sources in references section at [6][7][8][9][17]), installation procedure [10][11][17], maintenance advice [12][13][17], and location suggestions.<\/p>\n

The squirrel dens were dropped from the project because, given their size (and the need for three adjacent boxes) there was a lack of suitable locations for them [17]. The other dwellings remained on the list as we looked forward to the building process. Carlyle Ackerman (Jayne’s father) was the lead carpenter and designer of the bat boxes\u00a0and a\u00a0key collaborator\u00a0in the project.<\/p>\n

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Bat box construction, October 2014.<\/em><\/p>\n

Two bat boxes were put together with the help of Mr. Ackerman [18]. This was one of the most time consuming aspects of the project.<\/p>\n

When B&G accepted our proposal we contacted the\u00a0moderators of the Small Living Units (SLUs) on campus, suggesting the SLUs would be a good location for the shelters. Several SLUs came forward: the Tree House, the Interfaith House, and the Citizens of the World House. It was decided that the bird houses would be placed\u00a0at the Interfaith House and Citizens of the World House, and the bat boxes would be placed\u00a0at the Tree House. Bee hotels would be hung up along the bike path outside of the Science Center and various other locations.<\/p>\n

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Simple Bee Hotel Construction: reused plastic soda bottles with tops removed (above).<\/em><\/p>\n

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Fill with cut pieces of dried bamboo (above) and place in bottles (below), packed (Fall 2014) for installation in Spring of 2015.<\/em><\/p>\n

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An event was scheduled [14] to help build additional\u00a0shelters and spread awareness in hopes of interesting campus groups to maintain and develop\u00a0the shelters in the long term.<\/p>\n

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Building Carolina Wren boxes, November 2014.<\/em><\/p>\n

The event required us to\u00a0collect necessary materials, tools, and also\u00a0promotion for the event with\u00a0social media postings. We also presented our work in class [22]. Emily Webb, Ellen Hughes, and Cindy Hastings attended the event. At the event we built 7 bee hotels, and Dick Tuttle assisted us in building 5 bird houses.<\/p>\n

The final step of actually mounting the shelters was planned to happen in January 2015. Fall projects, like ours, suffer from the inevitable descent into winter. Both Jayne, Blake and Dick Tuttle committed to finishing the dwellings and installing them in the spring of 2015.<\/p>\n

Spring 2015 Efforts and Results<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Bird feeders outside of the\u00a0Schimmel Conrades Science Center (above) and Chapplear Drama Center(below). The feeders are currently maintained by OWU Alumni Dick Tuttle and we would like a student organization to take over maintenance of the feeders.<\/p>\n

The feeder stands that hold four feeders are checked daily. Oil sunflower seeds are added to the milk carton feeders. The water bottle feeders are loaded with thistle seed for American Goldfinches and House Finches.<\/p>\n

One bottle feeder at each stand has seed ports where American Goldfinches can feed while hanging up-side-down, a maneuver that House Finches cannot duplicate.<\/p>\n

A small suet feeder hangs from one of the milk cartons and it is used by woodpeckers, nuthatches and chickadees.<\/p>\n

A new hopper feeder was installed on April 27. It can go days before feed is depleted. Three ears of corn are attempts to attract Blue Jays, a species not yet seen at the feeder stations. Crows and grackles might also feed on the corn. Also, on each end of the hopper are compartments designed to hold suet and\/or slices of bread, etc.<\/p>\n

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Carolina Wren boxes painted (above) by residents of the SLUs where the boxes will be mounted, March 2015.<\/em><\/p>\n

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April 25, 2015: Box 3 (above) at the student observatory has\u00a0one egg in its moss nest.<\/em><\/p>\n

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April 25, 2015:\u00a0Box 4 between the Hamilton-Williams Center and the
\nAlumni Center. It contains three Carolina Chickadee eggs.<\/em><\/p>\n

Future of the Project<\/strong><\/p>\n

General Maintenance of Dwellings<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n