Get ready for bluebirds
Gardening With Dora
Dora Fleming

Place boxes out of sight of other boxes because bluebirds are territorial and will not use a box if they can see another bluebird nesting. Photo by Jim Cox

The Eastern bluebird is in our area now looking for appropriate nesting sites. You may see them in small flocks of five or six frequenting the highest perches they can find.

This bluebird is a secondary cavity nester, which means they use existing holes in trees and posts or abandoned woodpecker nest sites. These birds are early nesters, so having your boxes in place, cleaned and ready for their inspection now is important. They may begin to use the boxes as early as late February if the weather is warm.

This beautiful little bird is fussy about our nest box offerings. The nest boxes should be placed about five or six feet above the ground and oriented with the entry hole to the south facing an open area. Place boxes out of the sight of other boxes because bluebirds are territorial and will not use a box if they can see another bluebird nesting.

Nest boxes are readily available for purchase or can be built with specifications found on any bluebird web site. (If I were a bluebird and all out of rotten fence posts, I wouldn't be so persnickety.)

Even if bluebirds didn't eat so many insects, we would want them around because they are so pretty. The bluebird's head, back and wings are a brilliant blue, an intensity matched only by the indigo bunting. Adults have a reddish brown throat and white belly. As is common in the bird world, the females have to make do with more muted colors.

Bluebirds feed mostly on insects, but supplement their diet in winter with the fruits of sumac or dogwood. They are difficult to attract to our feeders unless we offer mealworms, suet or chopped fruit. They will readily

use a water source, however. The use of insecticides, absence of natural nesting sites, and competition from sparrows and starlings drove the Eastern bluebird to the brink of extinction in the 1900s.

Conservationists over the last few decades have encouraged the placement of appropriate nest boxes and these efforts have been successful in restoring bluebird numbers.

If the summer is long and the insects are plentiful, bluebirds may have as many as three broods in a season. That's a lot of insects out of your garden and down the gullets of four to six nestlings per brood.

The eggs hatch in 12 to 14 days and in another 14 to 24 days the little ones are out of the nest and on their own. Clean out the box at this point. I've seen juvenile members of a first brood assist the parents in feeding the next brood.

Even one bluebird nest in your yard can just about make your summer.

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