Welcoming the elusive bluebird
Now seems a good time to host a pair of birds that are symbols of joy and hope.
Over the winter we installed two bluebird houses about five feet up the trunks of two large white pines that sit on the edge of our field. We’ve seen bluebirds on our property over the past few years but they are elusive. We’d love to give a pair a home.
Now seems an especially good time to have bluebirds in our midst. In addition to being harbingers of spring, bluebirds are regarded as symbols of joy and happiness. They’re believed by some to be heralds of good news, of hope and renewal. We could use some of that.
So far the houses remain empty. This may take a little time. The nesting season is only now beginning and will run at least into July.
We’ve been enticing them with dried mealworms, which we can buy in enormous bags at the local Tractor Supply Co. store. Mealworms make for great chicken feed, which I’m sure is the reason Tractor Supply carries them. But bluebirds love them as well and we’ve been putting them out on top of two log benches between the houses.
We got the two boxes at Christmas though it took a chance, if sad, encounter with a bluebird a few weeks later to compel us to hang them out. We were out on our morning walk with the dogs on a route that takes us through a 19th century cemetery along the edge of a nature preserve. There on the snow near the road was a bluebird, lying on its side.
The bird was unblemished, its wings and tail glowing in iridescent blue, its chest a complimentary reddish brown commonly referred to as rufous. We carried it home, Katie cradling it in her hands, but it was not breathing. Perhaps it hit a car and was stunned and perished in the frigid air before it could recover. We don’t know.
It was in such good condition it was suggested we donate it to a lab or school. The University of Massachusetts in Amherst has a strong ornithology program and a bird collection of more than 4,500 specimens. It didn’t seem like an appropriate fate for this tiny, beautiful bird. We placed it on a cloth inside a covered brown box on the bench inside our potting shed, where it remained, frozen and unchanged, through the winter. A couple weeks ago, with the ground thawing, I buried it in the woods up the hill behind our house in a spot that has become our family animal cemetery. It joined a circle of stones with the names of various pets written on them, looked over by a leaning, 30-inch tall concrete garden statue of St. Francis of Assisi that had sat in my mother’s back yard for many years before making its way north with us.
In February we put the boxes up. They’re designed for bluebirds, made out of untreated wood with a slanted roof, no perch and a round, 1 ½ inch diameter hole. There’s an entire science devoted to bluebird house construction and placement. It’s all fascinating. The best website I’ve found is called Sialis, the Latin name for the Eastern Bluebird, and is the creation of Bet Zimmerman, a conservationist and longtime bluebird advocate in eastern Connecticut.
We’re still in the learning stage so we’ll see how this year goes. We placed our boxes about 50 yards apart, five feet off the ground, facing southeast so they get the morning sun and are protected from prevailing northerly winds. They sit on the edge of the meadow, which bluebirds love since they like to swoop down to hunt insects. Bluebirds also love berries, and there are nearby chokeberry and elderberry bushes and a serviceberry tree we planted last year. So food shouldn’t be a problem. Same goes for water. We have a birdbath and there’s the Konkapot River about 50 yards away, just down the hill.
It’s recommended that bluebird boxes be placed up to 100 to 150 yards apart since bluebird couples are territorial and don’t like living near each other. We didn’t have enough space for that, so we did the best we could. If there are tree swallows or other cavity-nesting birds in the area, the boxes can be set out in pairs about 10-15 feet apart. That leaves one box for a bluebird couple and the other for another cavity-nester. House sparrows are one species that should be discouraged from occupying the boxes, since bluebirds have little tolerance for this non-native predator that is one of the few bird species not protected by federal law. The starling is another, though it’s too big to fit into a bluebird box hole.
Ideally the boxes should be placed atop poles sunken in the ground baffles and sleeves on them to discourage predators like racoons or snakes.
Who knew putting out a bluebird house comes with so many zoning restrictions? We’re looking at this year as an experiment to see how things go. Maybe we’ll have an open house soon.
Our son gave us a bird feeder equipped with a remote camera last year and we moved it to a tree last month not far from the bluebird houses. We’ve been filling it with mealworms, and the visitors have mostly been tufted titmice, juncos and chickadees, along with an occasional blue jay and squirrel. Then the other day I was looking at the video clips on my phone and there, straight on, was a bluebird. It sat on the perch for a moment or two, then calmly took off toward the woods.
Here’s the clip:
I can only hope he was checking out the neighborhood and will bring his spouse along soon.
The Berkshire Bird Observatory and Great Barrington Land Conservancy put out four bluebird boxes in late March along a trail that follows the Housatonic River in Great Barrington, a town about nine miles from us. We visited the boxes a week or so ago with Ben Nickley, the bird observatory’s executive director, and to our amazement a female bluebird was busily flying in and out of one of the boxes depositing grasses inside while her male partner relaxed on a nearby split rail fence post.
We returned a few days later and discovered a fully formed nest inside.
Here’s a selection of other recent posts:
Bending the zone in a vegetable garden