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Jeffrey Thompson and Peter Cox
Afton, Minn.

Photos: For a long-married couple, a bluebird devotion

Chuck and Hope Lea
Chuck and Hope Lea, who are both 87 years old, walked from one of the more than 40 bluebird nesting houses they monitor at Belwin Conservancy in Afton, Minn. Monday, May 4, 2015. The couple has been volunteering at Belwin for 23 years, monitoring and recording bluebirds twice a week through most of the spring and summer.
Jeffrey Thompson | MPR News

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Chuck and Hope Lea of Lake Elmo, Minn., have been married 65 years, and for nearly a third of that, they've tended to bluebird nest boxes in hopes of rebuilding the songbird's population in the St. Croix Valley.

Every week through the spring and summer, they check 40 bluebird nest boxes for eggs at the Belwin Conservancy in Afton, just up the valley from the St. Croix River.

The nests were first built in the 1980s — as they were in many places throughout the state — by organizations concerned with the then-dwindling Eastern Bluebird population.

Gallery
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Walking alone
Hope Lea walked through the woods during an orienteering exercise at Belwin Conservancy.
Jeffrey Thompson | MPR News
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Walking through a prairie
A group of people walked through a prairie restoration area at Belwin Conservancy in Afton, Minn. Monday, May 4, 2015.
Jeffrey Thompson | MPR News
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Checking a Peterson box
Chuck Lea checked the contents of a Peterson bluebird nesting house at Belwin Conservancy. Lea, a former 3M engineer, charts the nesting patterns, eggs, growth and fledging of the bluebirds at Belwin. Eastern bluebirds are making a comeback and the Leas can claim some credit, says Joshua Leonard, Belwin's education director. "They're independently responsible for 1,600 birds coming out of those birdhouses," he said. "I think that's 738 bluebirds and then also some chickadees and tree swallows as well."
Jeffrey Thompson | MPR News