Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Sunday, June 18. 2017

Bird of the Week: The Bluebird of Happiness


The Eastern Bluebird is always a sight for sore eyes, and apparently their numbers are recovering from a decline. Their recovery is in part because of human assistance with Bluebird houses.


In New England, you can put up Bluebird houses in early summer because they often have two broods per season.


You won't see Bluebirds in suburbia because they are partial to good-sized fields, large lawns (ie over 4 acres), orchards, and forest edges. They like open country.


At the farm, we have about 15 Bluebird houses up on snake-proof poles. Half the houses are usually taken over by Tree Swallows, some are filled with sticks by House Wrens, and our cheerful Bluebirds use the rest of them. In meadows, the nest poles are good markers for large rocks - for mowing.


In New England, Bluebirds are semi-migratory, and can sometimes be seen in winter flocks foraging widely for fruits and berries.


The CLO entry of the Eastern Bluebird here.

Posted by Bird Dog in Natural History and Conservation at 12:18 | Comments (18) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

The blue bird out here in Idaho(I quess that's the western blue bird:) ) was one of my aunt's favorite birds. I remember them as a kid, but then they declined. The good news is they are making something of a comeback out west here, too.
#1 bob on 2008-03-19 12:25 (Reply)
I saw a bluebird on my deck, today, which is nr. some woods, in suburban Maryland, but only after my cats alerted me to his/her presence! What a beautiful sight and seemingly a good omen since I lost my job 5 wks. ago, but have a job offer coming!
#1.1 Jorie on 2008-03-21 21:15 (Reply)
We have em high in MT too! Love these little ones! Usually come down for the early spring and then disappear, but last year a few stayed around through the whole summer!
#2 apple pie on 2008-03-19 14:24 (Reply)
Truly a beautiful bird one of my favorites. Have had them at my feeder all winter, usually see them only in the spring;I don't know why , but I'm not complaining.
#3 jappy on 2008-03-19 15:51 (Reply)
Ment to put in N.H.
#3.1 jappy on 2008-03-19 16:01 (Reply)
Re House Wrens

Every year, Chickadees come and start putting in their nest, and the House Wrens come along a literally rip and spit it out of our bird house. Then, we get two hatchings of wrens, which makes for very pretty noise.

One year, somehow, the chickadees managed to get the house and we had a hatching of chickadees. So cute, the day they came out of the house -- perching in our shrubs, trying to find their legs.

We have never seen the wrens come out.
#4 D on 2010-04-23 12:45 (Reply)
House Wrens commonly fill every bird house and crevice in the neighborhood with sticks without using them as nests. A territorial thing. They will use one, and stuff the others.
#4.1 Bird Dog on 2010-04-23 12:50 (Reply)
No bluebirds [of Happiness, or otherwise] around here. But I do love the little darlings. We do, however, have our annual spring doves, moaning and carrying on at a great rate, trying to find mates. The air is filled with cooing and an occasional swear word.

Things will probably settle down.

Marianne
#5 Marianne Matthews on 2010-04-23 13:12 (Reply)
I had one of those simple houses like the first one, top-left. Squirrels trashed it. Nasty critters those squirrels.

Can't recall seeing a blue bird around my neck of the woods. Being associated with the sales portion of the world of business I tend to believe blue birds are a myth.

Fortunately I have My Osprey, yet again, to devote my bird ogling time to. Apparently the nest the had to completely rebuild last year was done properly 'cause it stood solid as a rock through a tough winter and the pair didn't seem to have to put as much effort into spring rebuilding this year.

Another week or two ought to bring forth the ospring.
#6 Knucklehead (Link) on 2010-04-23 14:34 (Reply)
I see more every year in our suburban Atlanta area. Lots of houses out for them but they seem to be less picky lately where they nest and are quite active and visible around our yard. Wonderful little creatures.
#7 phil g on 2012-02-24 12:33 (Reply)
My folks live in suburban Atlanta and I see the bluebirds when I visit.
When I was living there as a kid I built a bluebird house in 7th grade shop class. I thought any old bird would use it but bluebirds specifically nested in it for a couple years until the wood rotted.
#7.1 lordsomber (Link) on 2012-02-24 13:57 (Reply)
The Peregrine Falcon is back! I can tell immediately as the very saavy birds that munch at my feeders disappear, leaving the seeds for the squirrels (not on The Falcon's menu as yet). When he realizes the boids have out-smarted him, he leaves for the more naive fare at the park. The flock returns; today including the male cardinal seeking sunflower seeds.

As I recollect, the city introduced falcons some years ago to control the pigeon population, which (if true) has been very successful as I see very few pigeons these days. Unfortunately, the birds weren't told to limit their diet to pigeons. Last summer as I was yakking with a neighbor while her 5-year-old played kickball with others, a falcon swooped down and carried off a baby rabbit. The 5-year-old still has nightmares.

Life goes on and can be cruel. I introduced her to the Decorah eagles site, so hopefully she will have a better understanding of nature's cycle while she watches the little bobbleheads hatch in late March.

Thanks, BD, for continuing to present a smorgasbord of topics.
#8 jma on 2012-02-24 12:39 (Reply)
Between 1998 & 2003 a friend and I produced somewhere between 400 and 500 bluebird boxes and gave them away. I started out making 50 a year and giving them away at our local library as a seasonal promotional activity. There were usually another 10 or 15 that were given away as shooks to be assembled. Charlie started helping in 2000 and usually was good for 35 or 40 a year. They were made entirely from scrap from my shop (sadly, no longer a commodity) and had a retail material value of about $6, with about 12 minutes of labor in each. I still see them all around and many people told me of bluebirds that moved in being the first they had seen in many years. Good stuff.
#9 lenf on 2012-02-24 12:44 (Reply)
No, GREAT stuff. I would ask the local lumber yards for scrap. We did that one year to make little wooden cars and bus toys for the homeless/hospital-bound kidlets and they came up with endless scrap appropriate for our venture. One of my favorite memories of days when we had space for a "shop" that could tackle such projects. Guess I should look into such an endeavor again.
#9.1 jma on 2012-02-24 14:45 (Reply)
'like'
#10 observor on 2012-02-24 16:08 (Reply)
We get the same western bluebirds in BC just north of 49 as in Montana. Fabulous, beautiful birds. http://tinyurl.com/88pp7oy.

They flash by like little blue lightning bolts.

It's very nice that bird posts draw more comments than anything else. Humanity does seem to have some fundamental loves.
#11 Fred Z on 2012-02-24 23:55 (Reply)
When I was growing up in Chicago, the next door neighbor had a bluebird house, a big. He would take it down every winter and put it back up in spring so the sparrows would not fill all the nest boxes.

Here in Tucson, we have cardinals and owls but no bluebirds. Lots of quail.
#12 Mike-K (Link) on 2017-06-18 14:47 (Reply)
What is a snake proof pole?
#13 Apple Pie on 2017-06-18 18:34 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.