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Bluebirds in, Chickadees out!

© Mary Casey

The first sign that the bluebirds wanted our attention was when they perched on top of the bird house and warbled their melodious song whenever we went outside. The bluebirds would then hop down the front of the birdhouse and peer into the hole. Maybe they were looking for a new home. It was time to inspect our birdhouse.

The chickadees had built a nest in the birdhouse in April, as they had done every year for the last four years. We saw frantic activity early in the spring, then quiet. Soon after we saw the parents taking turns flying into the woods surrounding the birdhouse and back with prize morsels of food for the baby chickadees. If we were quiet, we could walk close to the birdhouse and hear their little piercing cries for food.

Now it was May, and the birdhouse was quiet. We decided to take a chance and open the birdhouse to see if the chickadees had fledged. When we opened the box we found an empty, well-crafted nest, made of moss, mulch, and fur from my dog. Following good birdhouse cleaning principles, we removed all of the old nest and dusted the box with sulfur to kill any parasites. We checked for any hornet's nests on the cover, or any other signs of insect invaders, such as ants. The box was clean and ready for another family of birds.

Ten minutes after we cleaned out the birdhouse and went inside, we observed the bluebirds return to the post where the birdhouse was located. They sang to each other and peered inside as they had done before. Then the male bluebird flew into the box, and came out again. The female flew in the box, and the male stood guard on the roof. Soon the two were flying into the woods and back again into the hole. It seemed as though they had been waiting for us to clean out the old tenants nest, so they could establish one of their own.

Bluebirds have been known to have two or three broods a year. They will return to the same nesting site every year. We have had bluebirds and chickadees in our birdhouse every year, sometimes four families worth of birds in one season. I think our success at luring birds to using our birdhouse is a combination of things.

Bluebirds and other small birds have to compete for nesting sites with larger, more aggressive birds, such as house sparrows and starlings. In order to provide the right house for your bluebirds, the entrance hole should be 11/2 inches or less in diameter to exclude the starlings and less than 11/8 inches or less to keep out house sparrows. The bluebirds like fairly open land close to woods or fields, so a bluebird house can be placed in a pasture, a cultivated field, or the edge of a wooded area. My birdhouse sits behind my mailbox, across the street from a pine woods, and facing lawns and trees. The birds have easy access to shelter in the trees or thick bushes and also can observe for predators in the clearing.