Need some advice on bluebird houses (for a newbie)

Thanks Pelle!

Muddylou...Thanks again for all the info and advice! I have to admit that since the BB's showed up in Jan. I am up at the crack of dawn waiting for the world to start!! It is fun and I will try and not get frazzled (oops...to late)! LOL!!

Kikisdad...Very cool looking house and baffle and love the colors!! Good luck with it!

Hi all! Being a novice, too, I learned bbs are very tolerant of us. This is my last year's photo. Believe me I was dive bombed plenty taking this pic, but it didn't drive the parents off. We are plagued with house sparrows, but what worked was establishing the bb nesting box as far away from the sparrows as possible - away from sparrow food source.

What a beautiful site!

So CapeCodGardener, did you ever get a nesting bluebird pair? I hope so!!

I cleaned out my cemetery trail boxes today & could SWEAR I heard a bluebird - they have such beautiful, burbling calls - I didn't see it though and maybe it was just wishful thinking. We're supposed to get a SNOW storm here tomorrow! Siiiiigggghhhhh.

Muddylou, I see activity around the box that I set up--flying in and out--and that makes me very happy! I haven't dared getting too close to the box--don't want to intrued! I'm so impressed with the closeup photos that some folks get, even of the nests of beautiful blue eggs! How do they do that?
When you say that you have a "cemetery trail" of boxes, do you mean in an actual cemetery?

Hi CCG - Yep, my trail is in Resurrection Cemetery about a mile from where I live (I also have one bb box in my backyard - these lucky birds get the mealworms) - I started with 3 boxes in the cemetery & now have 7: Alice; Taryn; Diana; Mabel; Grace; Gert; and ____ - whoops blanking on the last one.....) - I average approximately 7-9 baby bbs per box (taking into account chickadee & other cavity bird nestings and unhatched eggs) so am hoping for at least 60 bb babies this year!

In order to establish a trail in the cemetery, I first met several times with the people running the cemetery (primarily the head groundskeeper - Mark - who's a dear) - and I never put up boxes without speaking to them first. Interestingly, Mark is the one who suggested that he had room for a couple more boxes last fall! When I add boxes, Mark & I go out & figure out exactly where to put them. I always want the cemetery people always know exactly what I'm up to. I give them a written report each year so that they realize how much good the trail does for the bluebirds & so they know that I'm actually out there monitoring & keeping an eye on things.

Cemeteries are ideal locations for boxes, because house sparrow & house wrens don't nest there.

When you get used to having bbs in your box, you'll need to "intrude" so that you can keep on eye on progress & watch for blowflies & the like. That's how people get the great photos! The links above will tell you exactly how to monitor. It's intimidating at first but very soon both you & your bbs will have it down cold!

Regards, MuddyLou

Hi CCG - www.sialis.org is a good one, also check out HYPERLINK@www.birds.cornell.edu.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology & the North American Bluebird Society put out a great book too: "The Bluebird Monitor's Guide" by Berger/Kridler/Griggs, that I use all the time. I must have ordered it thru Cornell.......worth it's weight in GOLD!

Regards, MuddyLou

Dang, did one of the hyperlinks wrong - it's: www.birds.cornell.edu.

ARRRRGGGHHHHH wrong again - go up to my comment from 2/11/08 - the link is correct there. Don't know what I'm doing wrong here...........

Here its is. :-)

http://www.nabluebirdsociety.org/

Pelletory to the rescue!

I just discovered this thread on bluebird nesting today - and Pelletory's post on Jan. 31 mentions a site with a recipe for making suet for bluebirds - can you post that link again? I can't seem to find it in the thread. I'm new to this forum, but it looks like you are a knowledgeable bunch! I have a bluebird box in my backyard, on a pole about 7 feet tall, and I do have a pair in it now. Don't know if they have laid yet. It's hard to get up to look inside!

Hi suebecky, Here it is; theres a number of them just scroll down. :-)

http://sialis.org/suet.htm

Hey CCG...

How is your bluebird box going? I had 6 bluebirds through the winter but am down to a pair that I see pretty much all day. I have not put out mealworms yet (I will) but they sure do seem to love regular ol' suet and peanut hearts. I leave a cake on my deck rail underneath the suet feeder and they munch it down. My husband built 3 boxes but has to re-model them so that they can be monitored.

Hi sacarvounis (another Cape Codder!)
I've got a pair that I think are nesting, though I haven't dared to look inside yet. I'm going to move my suet feeder closer to the box--thanks for the recommendation. I also have some freeze-dried mealworms, which the BBs haven't been particularly interested in, but the titmice tuck into!
I'm interested that you had several BBs during the winter--I saw some too, which surprised me and thrilled me!

Hey fellow Cape Codder!

Yes....that group of bluebirds showed up in January and may have even been there longer as I had been so busy through December that I was filling the feeders at night just to keep up. They were quite shy at first but gradually tolerated me watching them from the kitchen window (about 6' from the deck rail). I went out and got a bluebird feeder which wasn't terribly expensive but they don't use it much. The titmice and Carolina wrens love it, though! I also tried bluebird nuggets which everybody else ate but they were indifferent. I had noticed them trying in vain to get to my suet feeder that is caged for small birds (they could have fit....the woodpeckers do) so I took a cake out and sat it on the rail just to see if that was really what they wanted. It was an immediate hit. If you move you suet, I would recommend arranging it so that they can sit on something to eat as they don't seem to like clinging on to a typical suet cage. I have one hanging off of the corner of a wisteria trellis and they can sit on the top of trellis and reach it. They also eat peanut hearts out of my spring loaded, one-way mirror window feeder that I have in an upstairs window. Every once in a while I get a really close look! Anyway, we have thoroughly enjoyed having these beautiful visitors these past months and I hope that I can entice them to stay. I didn't think that they stayed over the winter on the Cape either and I have never seen them in my yard before although I have lived on the Cape since '89.
Keep me posted!