bluebirds

 Here in the 8b deep south the bluebirds are showing up en-mass. Spent the last several days replacing and rebuilding their birdhouses and cleaning out last years debris.
We love watching them go through 3+ broods every year, but the benefit to my gardens is worth the effort alone. They can sure put away beetle larvae and grasshoppers while feeding their young.

It will be months until the Mountain Bluebirds get to us here in Eastern Washington!  But seeing them is such a pleasure!  You are so lucky!

Must be a different kind of bird then our blue jay. Though I don't discourages any birds for the most part, I don't like the blue jay.  They are total bully's.  Dive bombing any other bird around, and pushing other chicks out of there nest.  Give me a robin or dove any day.

Jen Fulkerson wrote:Must be a different kind of bird than our blue jay. Though I don't discourages any birds for the most part, I don't like the blue jay.  They are total bully's.  Dive bombing any other bird around, and pushing other chicks out of there nest.  Give me a robin or dove any day.

I know what you mean about bluejays but right, not the same bird as a 'bluebird'

bluebird facts

We have bluebirds in Texas, just not anywhere I have lived.  

They are a small bird who lives in houses with a small opening.  That is about all I know about them

Here is a picture and the thread about feeding them where I found the picture:

https://permies.com/t/21224/feeding-bluebirds

Ralph Sluder wrote:  Here in the 8b deep south the bluebirds are showing up en-mass. Spent the last several days replacing and rebuilding their birdhouses and cleaning out last years debris.
We love watching them go through 3+ broods every year, but the benefit to my gardens is worth the effort alone. They can sure put away beetle larvae and grasshoppers while feeding their young.

I'm so happy to read this! Arkansas was in that major Texas snow storm in mid February where we received over a foot of snow and below 0 temps, very unusual for here. After it was all over we found 7 dead, frozen bluebirds in our bluebird box and one dead on the ground. We haven't seen a bluebird or a wren since then. Thank God they were smart and moved to Georgia, hopefully accompanied by the wrens. Even the seed eating bird numbers seem low this spring. They plowed through a 50 pound bag of sunflower seeds in just a few days during that snow week but there are less birds overall than in past years.

I have seen quite a few bluebirds herd up in 1 birdhouse in the harsh weather. They are about to fledge their first brood here. I maintain about 2 miles of a bluebird trail and love to watch them.  I never seen them till about 15 years ago, watched a documentary on how they were disappearing g so I build a box.  Well, they showed up the first year and I suppose their progeny have been returning every spring.
 Put a few purple martin houses up too, they must not like it here, think they like it in town

Hundreds of Bluebirds were moving through the pass between the Raft River mountains and the  Black Pine mountains on the Utah Idaho state line on March 22nd. There wasn't any snow on the ground and a few small flying insects were out.

I definitely have bluebirds here in the panhandle.  Every morning there are 2-3 sitting on the power line leading to my house.  I put up three boxes for them over the winter and have seen the one closest to the house being checked out, but no sign any moved in except they are around the area a lot.  The one about 50 yards down on the next power pole I have spooked one out of several times on the way to my wood chip piles.  Hoping to get some families settled in this year, though they were around last year too.

More is better!

Next I need to move my temporary power pole (retire it from that job!) out into where I have been planting fruit trees and berries and start drilling and cleaning the birdhouse gourds I grew last year for purple martins.  Love to have a colony of those too.