03/04/2024
Read about our Bluebird Trail here at Ronile Inc in Rocky Mount , Virginia. We are featured on page 4 of the Virginia Bluebird Society's Spring newsletter.
https://www.virginiabluebirds.org
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/60048f2f4616fd2204d63be8/t/65e49d78a355437007a0997b/1709481336635/Bird+Box+newsletter+Spring+2024+%281%29.pdf
Manufacturing Company Turns Campus into Bluebird Trail
By Wade Thompson, Roanoke, Virginia
A manufacturing company in Rocky Mount, Virginia has taken the
meadows surrounding its factory and created a bluebird trail.
Back in 2021, Ronile, Inc., a space dyer of automotive, carpet and craft yarns, as well as sanitary products for use in the medical and feminine care markets, was looking for creative ways to become more green and environmentally sensitive. Ronile had already installed a biomass boiler to replace fossil fuels being burned for their steam needs. They also had replaced their energy hungry metal halide and fluorescent lights with modern high efficiency LEDs and worked for decades to reduce, reuse, and recycle its solid and liquid waste, but they wanted to do more. They didn’t have to look very hard to come up with the next great idea. Wade Thompson, Environmental Manager at Ronile, stepped up to the plate and said he was up for the challenge. He had been a bluebird advocate for many years and had fledged many broods from his own back yard in Roanoke.
“I had a strong desire to do things to support the rebound of the Eastern Bluebird in my own neighborhood and had assisted neighbors in installing their own bluebird houses. In addition, I had made a presentation about these native birds to our neighborhood association to inspire others to consider installing their own boxes.”
“In January, when the desire to expand our environmental footprint outside of our four walls arose here at Ronile, adding a bluebird trail was my first thought. Our CEO, Phillip Essig, was ‘all in’ on the idea and wanted us to start immediately so we could get them installed in time for the 2021 spring season.”
“Ronile was a pioneer in environmental stewardship in the textile industry, receiving the 1996 Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award from the State of Virginia for recycling waste dye. Shrinking our environmental footprint has always been part of our corporate mission, and we have made environmental improvements regularly since our founding in 1984,” Essig said.
Thompson said that the knowledge he gained from reading newsletters and articles from the Virginia Bluebird Society
website as well as his ten years of success with fledging bluebirds at home, gave him confidence that Ronile could put in a successful trail on their 36-acre property.
Things moved quickly and Ronile had its eight bluebird boxes planned and installed in three weeks. In the three years
the trail has been in place, 58 bluebirds and 19 tree swallows have been successfully fledged.
Thompson said that spacing them 100 yards apart, facing them eastward and having effective predator protection were keys to the high success rate. “Due to our site perimeter being mostly naturalized, we had many predators including racoons, possums, and snakes and we wanted the eggs and hatchlings protected. As a result, we installed our boxes with predator baffles and Noel guards to ensure that our bluebirds had the best chance possible to survive. We checked the boxes every two weeks during nesting season to ensure that only native species nested in them.”
Essig said Ronile is looking forward to many years of continued success with the bluebird boxes and for other new projects to continue to strengthen the company’s environmental legacy.
Virginia Bluebird Society Spring 2024
