A little over a week ago, a flock of about a dozen robins sat down in our front lawn to buoy our wintered spirits. Then, to assure us that the long winter was indeed wanning, the first bluebird of the year arrived last Sunday morning and by Monday afternoon was busy building a nest in the front lawn's bluebird box.
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.
Long ago, I have been told by my birding friends, Indians hung hollowed gourds around their villages to attract the then abundant bluebirds and purple martins, both of whom are voracious insect eaters, to control pest such as mosquitoes. I am told that 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 over the last 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.
Bluebirds rely on insects during the spring and summer and fruit the rest of year as food sources. In fact, as soon as my wife spotted our first bluebird of 1994, she scattered raisins around the wooden nesting box to hold the bird. Do not put out plain peanut butter because it is too hard for the bird to swallow and causes digestive damage.
Its preferred habitat features open areas with scattered trees -- like your own backyard, I'd guess.
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 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 and watch the feeding procession. Both parents feed the newly hatched birds and this goes on for quite some time -- up to maybe 3 weeks, before the babies are able to make it on their own.
