I don't know about you, but I've about had my fill of winter. Let's think of something other than cold winds, stuff falling out of the sky and the 16 inches of snow covering my lawn.
A robin at my bird feeder would be nice, but I'm thinking that a bluebird or two would be even nicer.
The little bird with the sky-blue back and the rose-tinted breast is the hands-down favorite of the Weaver family. Fortunately, we have managed to play host to a number of these little beauties over the years. This wasn't always so. In fact, it wasn't that long ago when a bluebird was a rare sight.
According to my friends at the Audubon Society, the unusually severe 1957-58 winter destroyed up to half the nation's bluebird population.
Long ago, Indians hung hollow gourds around their villages to attract the then-abundant bluebirds and purple martins, both of whom are voracious insect eaters, to control pests such as mosquitoes. Early American colonists admired the bluebird because it reminded them of their European robin.
Since the 1930s, bluebirds have experienced a steady population decline. Our Eastern species is reportedly the hardest hit of all, with losses of as much as 90 percent during the past 50 years. The other two species are the Western and Mountain. Each are similar in size, averaging between 5 1/2 and 6 inches in length.
They rely on insects during the spring and summer and fruit the rest of year as food sources. It's preferred habitat features open areas with scattered trees.
My wife once read and then subsequently observed that it takes most bluebirds between four and seven days to built a nest consisting primarily of grass or pine straw (both of which I have in abundance).
The birds then lay, we have found, from three to seven pale blue eggs (though we occasionally get white eggs), which incubate between 12 and 16 days. Out of that number, I am sad to report, we're lucky if one or two live.
Two of our bluebird boxes are within open sight of our patio and we love sitting there in the cool of the early evening to watch the feeding procession. Both parents feed the newly hatched birds, and this goes on for quite some time -- up to may be three weeks -- before the babies are able to make it on their own.
The bluebird's natural enemies are sparrows, starlings, raccoons, snakes, parasites and people. We had a tough time with sparrows last summer and lost nests in two of our three boxes. In one instance, the sparrows got into the box and killed the four babies plus the father. Don't kid yourself -- the bird world is a violent world.
