CAMDEN — Camden Town Planner Jeff Nims retired in 2010, but he’s been busy. He has a farm on Clarry Hill in Union where he cultivates blueberries. He has also been studying bluebirds and photography.

Nimbs is the current president of the Union Historical Society, and on Thursday April 28, he was the guest speaker at the Camden Garden Club’s annual meeting.

“This is the club’s first speaker for the spring and then we have a winter series of five meetings at the library,” said Molly Foister, who is cochairman of hospitality for the club. “We try to have a variety of speakers; horticulture, birds, animals, flower arranging and this is what our chairman of programs chose.”

Nims said retirement has been anything but relaxing.

“I have been way busier then I ever thought I would be,” he said. “My wife and I have a 15-acre farm, nine acres of which are blueberries. We’ve been managing it for more than 25 years. Since retirement, we’ve maintained the blueberry farm, but I also wanted to pursue a couple of passions of mine; one being photography and the other bluebirds.”

Nims said a bluebird showed up for the first time about 25 years ago.

“We put houses up and they had young,” he said.” I collected information about them and, especially since retirement, I’ve been able to just sit there with my camera and watch them. It’s just been wonderful.”

Nims said there are they are a remarkable bird.

“They are birds that need some help because they are threatened by the blowfly, which kills the young,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of blowflies in Union and also St. George. People who have nesting boxes need to be aware of them and watch out for them.”

Nims said he and his wife try to help the birds.

 “They eat mainly insects, some nuts and berries, but mostly insects,” he said “Bluebirds always migrate south during the winter and return in the spring, but the last few years some of them have been staying over. It’s mostly males that do it and of course we worry about them because there are no insects. And we’ve recently discovered, mostly from other bluebirders, that they will eat suet. 

A woodpecker pecks at the suet and pieces drop to the ground, where the bluebirds will eat it. Unfortunately, blowflies are not part of the bluebird diet.

“The blowflies are a problem to a bird that nests in a cavity or a box,” said Nims. “The flies — they’re maggots, actually — get into the bottom of the box and stay there during the day. At night, the maggots crawl up through the nest and they attach to the bellies of the babies and they suck the blood out of them. They do this night after night.

Nims said he’s had instances of 50 or more, and one time there was a 100 blowflies in a single nest. But, there is a way to help the bluebird babies.

“You take 16 days, from the time they hatch until they fledge,” he said. “You have to watch the bluebirds and determine when the babies hatch and you do that by watching the feeding activity. Then you count eight days. On the eighth day, you open up the nest and you remove the entire nest from the house.”

Nims said a new nest is introduced into the house and the house is cleaned of all blowfly larvae. One by one, the baby birds are picked out of the old nest and placed in the new one. Amazingly, the parents do not reject the young after being handled.

“After you finish, the parents immediately come back and start feeding them,” he said. “In 25 years we’ve never had parents reject the young. They will if you mess with the eggs, but not once they are hatched and the nest is changed.”

Nims said the Eastern bluebird populates the whole eastern part of the U.S. They migrate from southern Canada all the way down to Central America. Nims said that worldwide their population numbers around 22 million, but there was a time they almost went extinct.

“From the 1920s to the 1960s, the population was dropping dramatically,” he said. “Bluebirds were as prevalent as robins at one time. It was due mostly to the European Starling and the House Sparrow being introduced to the country. They are both cavity nesters and they were competing for those spots.”

Nims said a big effort in the late 1960s and 1970s to put up more nest boxes helped bring the species back, plus the awareness of the blowfly problems. The population has seen an increase of about 10 percent every year.

“It’s been fun and I’ve really enjoyed studying them,” Nims said. “I learned how to do Power Point demonstrations, so I could share this with other people. I first did this in Union two years a go for the library. Then, I did another one in Union for the senior citizens, and I did one for Merrywpring, so word just kind of got out. I did the Belfast Garden Club last week and now the Camden Garden Club this week.”

Nims said he tries to do one or two lectures in the spring because this is the time the birds are nesting and it’s important to get the word out.

The Camden Garden Club is a member of the Garden Club Federation of Maine and National Garden Clubs, Inc. Guests are always welcome.

Foister took the time to promote the club’s annual plant sale in May.

“We have a big plant sake coming up later in May,” she said. “It will be in front of Allen Agency on Main Street in Camden. All the plants for sale are provided by members of the Garden Club. Most of them come from their very own gardens.”