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Bluebirds Welcome

 

Bluebird
Western bluebird
© P. LaTourrette/VIREO


Give a Bird a Home

  • Put up the right boxes. Consider the habitat in your yard and determine which cavity-nesting birds frequent your region. Bluebirds prefer houses made from untreated pine or cedar, mounted on a metal pole with an entrance hole one and a half inches in diameter (slightly larger for western bluebirds). You’ll know you have bluebirds if the nest inside is in the shape of a cup woven from grass.
  • Position boxes in preferred locations. For example, bluebirds and American kestrels prefer open grassy areas; tufted titmice like the edge of a woods.
  • Don’t chop down dead or dying trees unless they present a safety hazard. Cavity-nesting birds like them. Woodpeckers especially will excavate nesting holes in dead trees but rarely take up in birdhouses..

 

If you build it, they will come

In Washington’s South Puget Sound, western bluebirds arrive each spring to nest in rare oak-studded prairies covered in blue camas flowers and chocolate lilies. But the birds have faced a housing shortage in recent decades because of a lack of natural tree cavities and too much competition from non-native birds. Now, local school kids have come to their rescue, welcoming bluebirds with 100 custom-built wooden nest boxes.

The work of Project Bluebird, a partnership between The Nature Conservancy, The Tumwater School District, and other public and private groups, has helped the local bluebird population, with 12 pairs nesting in the boxes in 2005 and more expected this year. In the 1970s, bluebirds had virtually disappeared from the South Sound area.

Nationwide, other cavity-nesting species, including the brown-headed nuthatch, oak titmouse and prothonotary warbler, have ended up on conservation lists because of the short supply of nest holes. The culprit is suburban sprawl, which has diminished prime nesting habitat while leading to increased populations of non-native house sparrows and European starlings, which compete for the limited number of natural cavities, says David Mehlman, director of the Conservancy’s Migratory Bird Program. “This is a real problem for species like bluebirds that can’t make their own cavities but must rely on old ones made by woodpeckers.” When no cavities are available, these birds simply may not nest.

Learn more:

  • Project Bluebird
  • Bluebird Cam
    Watch live images from inside a Project Bluebird nest box:
  • The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Birdhouse Network
    A citizen science project with over 1200 volunteers nationwide who are monitoring nest boxes in their neighborhoods and recording data for scientific research.  The web site has info on how to join the network, resources to help you buy or build a nest box, and bios of cavity nesting species.  Check out the “Nest Box Cams” for a live peek into the active nests of Barn Owls, Prothonatary Warblers, and Eastern and Western Bluebirds.
  • The North American Bluebird Society
    Offers a list of recommended nest box manufacturers, retailers, and distributors, a bluebird range map, and tips on bluebird behavior and where and how to mount a nest box.
  • The Purple Martin Conservation Association
    Teaches you how to become a “Martin Landlord”
  • View Nesting Birds
    Links to nest cams around the world, from Gentoo Penguins in Antarctica to Tawny Owls in Germany.