This is the year. I have a nest facing my field with five Eastern bluebird chicks.
The last time I thought that bluebirds would be fledging any moment, I lost the whole group. I do have tubes protecting them. There are no trees nearby. What could have happened? Possibly a snake was able to climb that tube. My next tactic was to plaster petroleum jelly all over that tube.
Now for some bluebird history. They are natives of the United States. They reminded our first settlers of the British robin redbreast, so they named the bluebird the "blue robin." Had you ever heard that? If so, let's try another fact.
It takes 25 days from the time the eggs are laid to the time the chicks leave the nest.
Photo by Ann Beebe
You'd think that these birds would head south in winter. If they do, they don't go too far. Maybe just down to Pennsylvania. They are often seen in Chautauqua County's Christmas bird count for Audubon.
Bluebirds used to nest in woodpeckers' holes. Who did the dastardly deed of lowering the numbers of the bluebird? The alien house sparrow. Then they were joined by alien starlings. Ugh!
These aliens will barge into the tree cavities or nest boxes that you have so generously provided for the natives. Now these birds live primarily along country roads in apple forests, rather than in residential areas.
You need to know that, this year, we had bluebirds migrating here in February. The reason was the warmer than usual winter that we had. Then, some of those birds were killed when we had a cold spell later on. How sad.
Studying bird behavior is very interesting. The males arrive a few days before the females in the spring. They search for a suitable home, hoping that the females will approve. When she arrives, if she doesn't like it, they have to start all over again finding a spot. She mostly builds the nest. Both adults take turns incubating the eggs. In 12 days the chicks hatch. They fledge 15 days later. Both parents feed the chicks and remove the excrement. However, these roles for the male can vary quite a bit. Usually, two broods, and sometimes three, are raised in a season. When the female is laying a new batch of eggs, the male is teaching the first fledglings to feed themselves. The first brood will also help feed the second brood. The whole family stays in the same vicinity until the fall.
Another interesting behavior is their hunting technique. All the thrushes eat animals, including worms and arthropods, as well as fruit. Of the thrushes, only the bluebirds hover to catch insects or to pick berries off a bush. This technique is called ground-sallying. They fly from a perch, land on the ground just long enough to grab an insect and then return to a perch.
Folks reported in Mr. Arthur Bent's book, dating back to the 1930s, that banded chicks from 1938 to 1942 returned to nest in the same parks where they were born. Birds at the ages of 243 to 370 days old were reported to lay eggs. That was 8.1 to 12.3 months, or just over one year. The average number of chicks in a clutch were five (the same as are in the nest in my field).
We should treasure our little blue robin. Put up those nest boxes. Hopefully, we can protect these birds from the invasive starlings and house sparrows. Some folks are putting up bluebird trails of lots of bird houses. Two of these heroes are John and Bev Ruska.
Since I started writing this article, the fledglings left the nest. In fact that happened just this morning. I hope that the parents raise another brood. That would be so much easier than putting out a vacancy sign.
Live life simply. Eat, sleep, bird.
Especially save the natural habitats for birds.