Tree Swallow Behavior

Tree Swallow's are short distance migrators and they gather in large flocks in the fall. Also, they are the first swallows to reappear in the spring.

Bluebird Behavior

     We find that Bluebirds can have two males and one female in their nests. This only happen sometimes because the male tries to push the young away.

Migration Patterns of Eastern Bluebirds

 Some Bluebird's go south in the winter, and some remain in the southern portion of the state they are living in. From the Eastern United States, Eastern Bluebirds travel to Mexico, The Gulf of Mexico and coast and Florida where it is warm. There is still populations of Eastern Bluebirds that travel to Arizona.

MoRe BlUeBiRd FaCtS

Eastern bluebirds will often spend the winter in the North, and it is not unusual to see them in winter in Massachusetts. The key is for them to find sufficient food to sustain them through the winter. They will often roost together, to keep warm at night, in a single nesting house. As many as a dozen males have been found in the same house at the same time in winter.

Bluebird populations fell in the early twentieth century as aggressive introduced species such as European Starlings and House Sparrows made available nest holes increasingly difficult for bluebirds to hold on to. In the 1960s and 1970s establishment of bluebird trails and other nest box campaigns alleviated much of this competition, especially after people began using nest boxes designed to keep out the larger European Starling. Eastern Bluebird numbers have been recovering since.

This small, brightly colored thrush typically perches on wires and fence posts overlooking open fields. The birds forage by fluttering to the ground to grab an insect, or occasionally by catching an insect in midair. Bluebirds can sight their tiny prey items from 60 feet or more away. They fly fairly low to the ground, and with a fast but irregular pattern to their wingbeats. Males vying over territories chase each other at high speed, sometimes grappling with their feet, pulling at feathers with their beaks, and hitting with their wings. The boxes and tree cavities where bluebirds nest are a hot commodity among birds that require holes for nesting, and male bluebirds will attack other species they deem a threat, including House Sparrows, European Starlings, Tree Swallows, Great Crested Flycatchers, Carolina Chickadees, and Brown-headed Nuthatches, as well as non-cavity nesters such as robins, Blue Jays, mockingbirds, and cowbirds. Males attract females to the nest with a display in which he carries bits of nesting material into and out of the nest. Once a female enters the nest hole with him, the pair bond is typically established and often remains intact for several seasons (although studies suggest that around one in every four or five eggs involves a parent from outside the pair).

Eastern Bluebirds put their nests in natural cavities or in nest boxes or other artificial refuges. Among available natural cavities, bluebirds typically select old woodpecker holes in dead pine or oak trees, up to 50 feet off the ground. Older bluebirds are more likely than younger ones to nest in a nest box, although individual birds often switch their preferences between nesting attempts. When given the choice in one study, bluebirds seemed to prefer snugger nest boxes (4 inches square instead of 6 inches square on the bottom) with slightly larger entrance holes (1.75 inch rather than 1.4 inch diameter).

After a male Eastern Bluebird has attracted a female to his nest site (by carrying material in and out of the hole, perching, and fluttering his wings), the female does all the nest building. She makes the nest by loosely weaving together grasses and pine needles, then lining it with fine grasses and occasionally horse hair or turkey feathers. Nest boxes in some places are so common that a single territory may contain several suitable holes. Females often build nests in each available hole, but typically only use one of these. Bluebirds may use the same nest for multiple broods.

Insects caught on the ground are a bluebird’s main food for much of the year. Major prey include caterpillars, beetles crickets, grasshoppers, and spiders. In fall and winter, bluebirds eat large amounts of fruit including mistletoe, sumac, blueberries, black cherry, tupelo, currants, wild holly, dogwood berries, hackberries, honeysuckle, bay, pokeweed, and juniper berries. Rarely, Eastern Bluebirds have been recorded eating salamanders, shrews, snakes, lizards, and tree frogs.

Eastern Bluebirds live in open country around trees, but with little understory and sparse ground cover. Original habitats probably included open, frequently burned pine savannas, beaver ponds, mature but open woods, and forest openings. Today, they’re most common along pastures, agricultural fields, suburban parks, backyards, and golf courses.

• The male Eastern Bluebird displays at his nest cavity to attract a female. He brings nest material to the hole, goes in and out, and waves his wings while perched above it. That is pretty much his contribution to nest building; only the female Eastern Bluebird builds the nest and incubates the eggs.
• Eastern Bluebirds typically have more than one successful brood per year. Young produced in early nests usually leave their parents in summer, but young from later nests frequently stay with their parents over the winter.
• Eastern Bluebirds occur across eastern North America and south as far as Nicaragua. Birds that live farther north and in the west of the range tend to lay more eggs than eastern and southern birds.
• Eastern Bluebirds eat mostly insects, wild fruit and berries. Occasionally, Eastern Bluebirds have also been observed capturing and eating larger prey items such as shrews, salamanders, snakes, lizards and tree frogs.
• The oldest recorded Eastern Bluebird was 10 years 5 months old.

Bluebird Information

• Females usually lay 4 to 5 eggs, and it takes about 2 weeks to incubate them. Plus, they stay in the nest for an additional 15 to 20 days.
• Bluebirds eat small fruits and hunt insects, spiders and other creatures.
• The birds perch, watch and they swoop to the ground to pounce on their prey.
• Pairs mate in the spring and summer, when they constuct small bowl-shaped nests.
• Bluebirds can fly up to 17 miles per hours.
• Bluebirds are called bluebirds because they are mostly blue.
• Bluebirds will eat at feeders if you have a peanut butter and cornmeal mixture.
• Bluebirds are members of the thrush family.
• Insects like grasshoppers, crickets and beetles make up most of the of the bluebird's diet. Most of the country drives during an eastern North American summer will turn up a few Eastern Bluebirds sitting on telephone wires or perched atop a nest box, calling out in a short, wavering voice or abruptly dropping to the ground after an insect. Marvelous birds to capture in your binoculars, male Eastern Bluebirds are a brilliant royal blue on the back and head, and warm red-brown on the breast. Blue tinges in the wings and tail give the grayer females an elegant look.