I've enjoyed monitoring bluebird houses over the last few years, but it's been a thrill to be able to spy on a bluebird family this spring, thanks to an Eagle Scout project last year installing a bluebird box with a webcam adjacent to the Bob Campbell Geology Museum (part of the Garden where I work).
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You might enjoy a couple of related posts on What's Happening at the Garden? This is the latest news.
A joy in the Garden's meadows are Eastern bluebirds, who make use of the nestboxes and meadow-supported caterpillars to raise multiple broods each year.
The first breeding session is underway; this box is one of the most desirable, with a large expanse of meadow below.
I've been seeing a male bluebird perched on the top in recent weeks. I'll have to check if he's found a mate yet, and set up a nursery nest.
There's a male bluebird perched on a favored bluebird house at the edge of the Garden's meadows (at the botanical garden where I work) almost every morning now. I haven't looked in the box yet, but nesting activity should be well underway.
I normally would like to be monitoring the boxes weekly, but this spring has found many gardening programs, activities, and other non-bluebird tugs on my time.
Bluebirds thrive in the Garden's varied habitats of meadows adjacent to woods, and we've had bluebird boxes up for many years, recently replaced a couple of years back thanks to a Youth Build program based at our university.
We usually have 12-18 successful broods per year from our eleven Garden boxes, with occasional casualties due to black rat snakes (our boxes don't have baffles).
In our home landscape, we don't have the right habitat for bluebirds, although occasionally we'll see one investigate. They're lovely birds and have their populations have rebounded with increased placement of boxes to replace the lost natural cavities that they would otherwise use.
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