Winter Bluebirds

If you thought that Bluebirds fly south for the winter....they don't. At least not around here, and not in Ohio either.

The bluebird at left is sitting on the edge of the bluebird feeding tray that I built to attach to our deck railing. The doggone mealworms didn't like to hang around too long waiting to get eaten and they would crawl off of the railing. This new feeding tray makes it a little harder for the little fellows to get away. We also put cut up raisins and cranberries on the tray for the bluebirds.

The first time I realized that bluebirds stay for the winter was about 5 years ago while we were in Ohio at Christmastime. I was out hiking in the snow in the woods and saw several bluebirds. When I got back to Texas after Christmas I made a couple of bluebird houses for my daughter in Ohio and she raised babies in her backyard the first summer. After some trials and tribulations with those nasty House Sparrows, she raised more bluebirds this year.

We had one pair of bluebirds raise two seperate nests of babies this year....one right after the other. Now we have up to 6 bluebirds dropping in about 2 or 3 times a day for mealworms and berries. We can't tell if our daily visitors are the parents or all just the teenagers since the babies are all grown up now and they all have their adult plumage.

Bluebirds normally eat insects in the warm months and whatever berries they can find in the cold months. It must be a real treat for them to find insects (the mealworms) this time of year. They always eat the mealworms first and then come back later for the berries.

This picture was taken into the sun so the colors don't show up very vividly, but the pose is exactly like the one in a framed picture that our next door neighbor (soon to be neighbor...house not done yet) gave us. Their picture is better, but I like the 'here's looking at you' pose.

Even though the bluebirds obviously don't nest in the winter, we keep the bluebird box up since we have read that on very cold nights as many as 8 or 10 bluebirds will crowd into a bluebird box to huddle together for warmth. With the temperature scheduled to drop to 13 tonight, this might be one of those times.