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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 

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For 23 years, Chuck and Hope Lea, both 87, have tended to bluebird nest boxes in hopes of rebuilding the songbird's population in the St. Croix Valley.

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

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