Backyard Bird Watching

Bluebirds are a favorite species of backyard bird watchers. Different than other bird species in which providing food and bird seed is the primary draw to a garden habitat, for eastern, western and mountain bluebirds alike, it’s a bird house which will attract them initially. As a result of of the decline in bluebird potential homes in natural settings, such as dead trees and wooden fence posts, along with competition from European species of sparrows, there has been a grievous decline in bluebird populations. Therefore, place a bluebird box or bird house for these spectacular avian friends and you will have a much better chance of them being attracted to your yard than without a box.

Bluebirds also are attracted to meal worms and insect foods, which are the larvae of a beetle. They can be purchase live, freeze dried or moist in cans. Live meal worms need to be stored in the fridge and served in a tray feeder or special blue bird feeders, with sides that are at least 2" deep. Meal worms can crawl and will crawl out of a shallow tray. Meal worms are particularly prized during the cold winter months while the insect and bugs which bluebirds consume are meager. They will also enjoy peanut butter dough. Mix one part peanut butter together with six parts of cornmeal, and set the dough in a suet bird feeder or on a platform type tray bird feeder.

And finally, bluebirds are very big on bathing, so be sure to place a bird bath in the backyard, or a pretty shallow dish for them to drink and bathe in. Make sure the bath has a textured bottom so they won’t slip, or else they will not get in it. A depth of about 2" is perfect!

Bluebirds are a favorite of many backyard bird watchers. They are beautiful and very adapted to human populated areas and urban gardens. There are several ways to attract these beautiful birds to a yard or garden habitat.

The first piece of advice that I can give is to provide them with water. They are big on bathing! Bluebirds love water and are a species most likely to use a bird bath not only for drinking reasons but to bathe in. My area is not perfect for them but I have water all about the garden and they visit me daily for a bath. When there are fledglings the babies come as well. Any puddle of water will do, from a flower pot bottom placed on the ground to a garden stake bird bath feeder. Bluebirds will also come close to human dwellings, so if you have a the right area, try a deck, porch or patio hanging bird bath. Both the garden stake style and the hanging baths may also be used as a bird feeder which is a nice touch! They as well can be quite beautiful and enhance outdoor decor.

Garden Stake Bird Bath or feeder:

Another option on bird baths if the desire is to have something which is both pretty and functional are decorative garden metal pedestal bird baths feeders. These can be just stunning and are garden art. They also can be used as bird feeders if wanted.

Something to remember is to keep the bird bath in a safe location out of reach of predators like domestic house cats. Make sure it is in a sunny location as they prefer to bathe in the sun, and there should be a tree, shrub or railing nearby that they can fly to after a bath to preen and fluff their feathers. And don’t forget to provide the birds with water in winter! During winter bluebirds flock in groups, so you can get many of them to visit at one time if a backyard is appealing to them!

Attracting Bluebirds with Bird Houses and Boxes

Bluebirds are cavity nest dwellers and may be easily attracted to a man made bluebird house or box if given the right environment. Bluebirds want large, open spaces with lower cut grass or vegetation and a a couple of spread out trees where they hunt insects, forage and perch from. Insects are their primary food source and they perch on tree limbs, fences to dive down and catch bugs. Rural areas, farms, meadows, groves, open parks, cemeteries, and the edges of urban lawns and gardens are good locations.

Bluebirds can easily use assistance for homes. Bluebirds can’t hollow their own nesting cavities since they have soft beaks not make for chipping wood. Instead they use abandoned woodpecker holes or decomposing trees for their houses. A man made box is a wanted sight to many bluebirds, all the same, they can be a bit more choosy than other birds about how their home is fashioned and the place it is situated.

An effective bluebird house needs to have a floor size of 5" x 5" to 6x6", the height needs to be from 8 to 12", the entry hole needs to be approximately 6 to 10" over the floor and the diameter of the entry hole needs to be 1 1/2". Be certain boxes are built of long-lasting wood such as cedar, have ventilation holes at the top as well as drain holes at the bottom. Other beneficial feature is an simple open front or side panel to monitor on the progression of the nesting birds and their babies without upsetting them.

Feeding Bluebirds  

Throughout the hotter months during the year bluebirds can typically discover adequate food to live with no difficulty.Nonetheless, with heavy weather like extended time of cool, wet weather, snow or once ice covers the majority of wild berries, bluebirds can profit from finding feeder meals. Meal worms, suet, sunflower hearts, soft fruits, as well as cornmeal muffins could be given to bluebirds. Many of these can be consumed throughout the frigid weather months if bluebirds have stayed over. Meal worms are the better food to give bluebirds and they can easily consume them all year long.  In the breeding time of year, it’s good to feed meal worms since the harassed parents will appreciatively take them to assistance feeding their hungry babies. Essentially, it works as a add-on to the natural insect diet bluebirds give their nestlings.

Meal worms may be dished out in whatever sort of shallow dish or container that has smooth and tall enough sides so the meal worms can not crawl out and escape. The feeding dish has to be built of either glass, smooth plastic, metal or ceramic since meal worms will crawl from of bowls with rough sides. There are many styles of bluebird bird feeders available made from different materials, but all cater to these beautiful birds. Designed especially for offering insects and meal worm bird food in a backyard, they go a long way to help attract them! These feeders are made so that insect food can not crawl out and often so that there is no access to the feeder from larger birds.

 The red headed woodpecker is one of my favorite birds. i used to see them often years ago, but now i have not seen one in years. When they say that a bird is on the decline I believe it. You don’t really notice things that go missing. Please help these birds.

This is from the Audubon Bird Watch List: 

Threats

At one time the Red-headed Woodpecker was targeted by sportsmen because of its brilliant red plumage, as an agricultural pest, and for damage to telephone poles. Its population has decreased as a result of food source losses, as evidenced by population declines in association with the decline of beech trees and the disappearance of Rocky Mountain grasshoppers. Collisions with automobiles were particularly common in the mid-1900s and the species is considered a rare victim of tower collisions. Nest failure occurs when nests are excavated in telephone poles recently (within 3-4 years) treated with creosote. Competition for nesting sites with European Starlings was thought to decrease reproductive success, but recent studies show that this may not be the case. The mere fact that starlings nest earlier than this woodpecker suggests that Red-heads may not be vulnerable to starling invasion. Habitat has been degraded by the harvesting of snags, clearcuts, agricultural development, channeling of rivers, regeneration of eastern forests, fire suppression, monoculture crops, and the loss of small orchards.

Conservation
The Red-headed Woodpecker is listed as a vulnerable species in Canada and is listed on multiple state threatened species lists in the United States. Habitat should be managed so as to provide large forest fragments (>2 ha) with large snags for nesting and open areas for catching flying insects. In addition, selective thinning has been shown to increase the likelihood of occurrence and nesting in Ohio. Controlled fires have negative and positive impacts. While they open up the forest (providing open space for fly catching) and create snags, they can also destroy existing snags used for nesting.

The Red-headed Woodpecker is listed as a priority species in Partners in Flight’s Bird Conservation Plan for the Upper Great Lakes Plain (http://www.partnersinflight.org). One of the objectives of this plan is to increase Red-headed Woodpeckers by 3% per year in USFWS Region 3 from 1980-2010 as measured by the Breeding Bird Survey.

What Can You Do?
Audubon’s Important Bird Area program is a vital tool for the conservation of Red-headed Woodpeckers as well as other species. To learn more about the Important Bird Area programs in New York and Colorado, and other states with breeding populations of Red-headed Woodpeckers, and how you can help, visit: http://www.audubon.org/bird/iba/

Volunteers are crucial to the success of programs that monitor the long-term status of wintering populations of Red-headed Woodpeckers and other bird species. Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is one of the longest-running citizen-science monitoring programs in the world and has helped to follow changes in the numbers and distribution of Red-headed Woodpecker.
Information on where Red-headed Woodpeckers occur and in what numbers is vital to conserving the species. Help in monitoring this and other species by reporting your sightings to eBird. A project of Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, eBird is the world’s first comprehensive on-line bird monitoring program.
The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and the USDA Forest Service coordinate Birds in Forested Landscapes, a citizen-science project that links volunteer birders and professional ornithologists in a study of the habitat requirements of North American forest birds, including Red-headed Woodpecker. To learn more about Birds in Forested Landscapes, and how you can participate in the project, visit: http://birds.cornell.edu/bfl/