Bluebird Facts

1. Bluebirds are members of the thrush family.
2. There are three bluebirds in North America, including the eastern, western and mountain bluebirds.
3. Insects like grasshoppers, crickets and beetles make up most of bluebirds' diets.
4. Attract bluebirds to your windowsills by putting out mealworms.
5. Bluebirds will eat at feeders if you have a peanut butter and cornmeal mixture.
6. Bluebird nests are built mostly by the female in natural tree cavities, old woodpecker holes, rail fences, holes in stumps and bird boxes.
7. Nests are made of dried grasses, pine needles, weed stems, fine twigs, and are lined with finer grasses, hairs and feathers.
8. Young bluebirds leave the nest 15-20 days after hatching.
9. Bluebirds can fly up to 17 miles per hour.
10. Serious competition occurs between bluebirds, starlings and house sparrows over nesting holes.
11. Bluebirds are unique to North America. Despite the reference to England in Nat Burton's song, bluebirds are only found on our continent.
12. Bluebirds are family oriented. The courting male dotes on the female, waving his wings, enticing her to select a nest site and offering her treats.
13. Male bluebirds courageously guard the box during nest construction.
14. Male bluebird deliver food to incubating females and participate equally in feeding nestlings and fledglings.
15. In the days before pesticides, farmers put up nest boxes around their fields, as they were aware that bluebirds eat many insects.
16. Bluebirds are considered harbingers of spring. Although they may overwinter in colder climes, they actively begin house hunting in February and March, signaling better weather ahead.
17. Bluebirds are associated with hope, happiness and many other things we love. As a result, they have probably appeared in more songs, poems and literature than any other bird.
18. In 1909, Maurice Maeterlinck published The Blue Bird, a fairy tale about the bluebird of happiness. In 1934, tenor Jan Peerce made Bluebird of Happiness a hit.
19. One of the most famous WWII-era pop classics was a Nat Burton song sung by Vera Lynn. "There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover, tomorrow just you wait and see."
20. In 1939, Judy Garland sang plaintively, "Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly."

Bet Zimmerman from Woodstock, Connecticut helped us pull together these facts.