Bluebird with mealworms

Most years Bluebirds start to nest during late January and February in many area of the United States.  The winter weather this year in much of the country has been too cold and food sources too short to all the females Bluebirds to get into body condition to reproduce. If there has ever been a year to help the Bluebirds with supplement feeding, this is it!  One of the favorite things that Bluebirds

Mealworms Value Tub

love to eat is mealworms. Dried mealworms are a great convenient way to feed them to your feathered friends. They can be purchased in small packages or in a value tub, which is a good buy.

Hiatt Jelly & Mealworm Stake Feeders are a good way to feed Bluebirds the worms. You can move them around your lawn or garden so you can view the birds. Should you get eaten out of house and home, try the Songbird Essentials Recycled Plastic Mealworm Feeder. This feeder keeps out unwanted birds while offering a safe exit for excited Bluebirds.

Meal Worm Feeder

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In most areas where the Eastern Bluebirds winter in the United States the male beginning in early to mid February takes the female around to potential nesting sites for the two of them to get cozy. First babies are often born the first or second week of March.  By the end of January is the best time to install Bluebird Houses if you are going to put them up. If you can’t do it until later – don’t despair as Eastern Bluebirds often raise 2-3 families per year depending on weather and food availability. Eastern Bluebirds also often use Bluebird Houses as a winter roost to get out of the wind and winter weather.

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Eastern Bluebird

quantities of insects, such as cutworms and grasshoppers which damage our crops and gardens. These types of bluebirds make their home in North America: The Eastern Bluebird, The Western Bluebird and the Mountain Bluebird. These beautiful birds were once very common in much of the United States. However, over the past century their numbers have diminished due to the loss of natural habitat, overuse of pesticides and predators.

· Bluebirds prefer to live in open areas such as parks, pastures and meadows. Bluebirds eat large quantities of insects. Insects make up 60% – 80% of a bluebirds diet. They like to perch in small trees or fence posts and swoop down to eat insects on the grassy ground. Bluebirds will not typically visit your seed feeders, but will eat berry or insect suet that you place in a suet feeder for them.

· Bluebirds nest in natural tree cavities and old woodpecker holes. When natural nesting sites are scarce, bluebirds will use nesting boxes. Bluebird nesting boxes should be mounted on a fence post or pole, low to the ground, but no higher then 4-5’ above the ground. Situate the nesting boxes along woodland edges facing open land. Keep your nesting boxes as far away from human habitation as possible.

· Providing nesting materials is a very important factor in attracting nesting bluebirds to your backyard. Collecting nesting materials can take 100’s of trips. Bluebirds like soft grasses and fragrant pine needles as nesting material. Provide these nesting materials in a specially designed container, an empty suet cage, or you can simply gather bunches of material and situate it in the bark of a tree.

· Bluebirds, like all insect eating birds drink lots of water daily. Offer plenty of water sources, such as bird baths, in your bardyard.

Plant scattered fruit and berry trees, mixed with open lawn and herbaceous flower beds to make an excellent Bluebird habitat. Bluebirds enjoy the berries and fruits from red cedar, Virginia creep. Holly, dogwood, sumas, blueberry, bayberry, hackberry and elderberry.

· Bluebirds will also eat chopped fruit, berries and chopped peanut kernels from a platform feeder.

· To learn more about bluebirds join the North American Bluebird Society.

Designed for cavity nesting birds. North American Bluebird Society Approved.

Many North American birds nest in “cavities” (holes in trees and fence posts). Although some birds, such as woodpeckers, can chisel their own holes with the heavy, sharp bills, other cabity-nesters must find suitable holes for nesting. Unfortunately suitable nest cavities can be hard to find in much of North America.

One way to solve the nest-site shortage is to provide artificial cavities, also known as Bird Houses or nest boxes. More than 50 species of birds including Bluebirds, Kestrels, Owls, Titmice, Chickadees, Nuthatches, Wrens, Tee Swallows and Woodpickers will use bird houses. Bird houses have helped boost populations of many cavity-nesting bird species whose numbers were declining. For example, both Wood Ducks and Eastern Bluebirds recently have made dramatic comebacks. A Bird House on your property will provide a valuable home for birds and enjoyable bird watching for you. At our website we offer a wide variety of bird houses and bird feeders. These will help you to attract nesting birds. You will enjoy the sites of parents and young birds in your yard.

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