Plants And Birds

By November, most truly migratory birds have departed. However, many birds undertake a partial migration. 

They travel, often in huge flocks, from breeding or roosting grounds on a mountain range into valleys and lowlands or roam the countryside for several hundred miles searching for food.

Among these partial migratory species are the bluebirds. No North American bird better deserves the name, for no other one flashes before our admiring eyes so much brilliant blue. 

He wears a coat of the purest, richest, and most gorgeous blue on their back, wings, and tail.

Beautiful Bluebirds

The bluebird is a bird of open country with scattered trees. It seems especially attractive to orchards but occurs wherever wooded areas have been opened up by lumbering, fire, or flood.

Most regions could be more abundant if nest sites were more plentiful. 

But suitable sites are scarce, and bluebirds now have to share them with two aggressive rivals from Europe—the starling and the English sparrow. 

Habitat and Nesting

It has been repeatedly demonstrated that community birdhouse campaigns can produce marked increases in the bluebird population. 

An entrance hole 1 ½” inches in diameter excludes starlings, and a location 6’ feet or less discourages English sparrows.

Bluebirds almost always raise at least two broods a season or attempt to do so. As soon as the birds of the first brood are on the wing, the male takes charge of them, feeds them, and teaches them to feed themselves while the female gets busy with her second nesting. 

Breeding Behavior

Only a few days are needed to build the second nest or to lay the eggs in the old renovated nest. 

By the time the second brood is hatched, the well-grown young of the first brood are still in the vicinity of the nest and assist in feeding the nestlings. 

When all the young are fully grown, the family group keeps more or less together in the neighborhood of the nesting site until the time comes to wander about in the fall.

Bluebird Food

The food of the bluebird is of special interest to the farmer and fruit grower, as this domestic bird nests freely about farmsteads and orchards. 

Almost 70% of its diet is derived from the animal kingdom, chiefly from insects; the balance is vegetables, mainly wild fruit such as the black-haw.

Viburnum Prunifolium “Black Haw Tree”

The black-haw, Viburnum prunifolium, or the southern counterpart, Viburnum rufidulum, is a low, bushy tree, sometimes 35′ feet high. 

It is often shrubby, especially in northern states and southern Canada. It develops a wide, rounded top with many rigid branches and spurlike branchless branches. Its trunk is often crooked.

This viburnum mainly inhabits dry, rocky hillsides and uplands, frequently along fence rows and roadsides, where birds have dropped seeds. 

Its glossy leaves, numerous clusters of white flowers, and aesthetic fruit have made it, like all viburnums, very popular for ornamental planting in parks and private grounds both in this country and Europe.

Black Haw Fruit

The fruit of the black haw ripens in late autumn. Blue-black, bloomy, and sweet, it is occasionally eaten by children. 

Sometimes, the drupes grow 1/2-inch long and are produced in great profusion. And they frequently last well into winter. The fruit is particularly effective in fall against the red foliage.

44659 by  Alfred E. Runk