Elizabeth Kalman

To commemorate my fiftieth birthday, my family gave me a bluebird house. I love birds, and that’s a fact, and it was a cute little house, and Kevin mounted it out on the fence, pronto, but … it seemed a little weak for a fiftieth birthday gift.

I also have to confess when I looked at the cute little house out on the fence I had little hope that any birds would take notice of it, especially the elusive bluebird.

Bluebirds, as it turned out, love bluebird houses. They turned up so fast I think they must have been circling overhead, with their heads cocked, scanning the neighborhood for new bluebird houses.

You may be wondering, as did I, How do they know which bird houses are specifically manufactured for bluebirds?

I haven’t got the answer for that one, or for any of the other questions about bluebirds that have popped into my mind over the past several months, but I can give you some bluebird facts that Ihave learned.

Fact #1:  Bluebirds are distinctive when they flutter, because their spread wings and tails are psychedelic blue.

Fact #2:  When the mom lays the eggs, the dad plugs the opening with his fuselage, facing out. Dad Bluebird stared us down one day for about 12 hours, and I just knew Mom was laying.

Fact #3:  Baby bluebirds “fledge” on a prescribed day–Day 14 as I recall–and literally fall out of the house and stumble away while the mom and dad flutter about. If you stuff them back in the house, they just “fledge” out the hole again.

Fact #4:  Fledglings can’t fly. They can, we discovered, attract snakes while they stumble around on the ground.

Fact #5:  Baby bluebirds cannot swim. Mounting the birdhouse next to the pool was not ideal, as it turned out. Oops.

Fact #6:  Bluebirds are very forgiving. Just because a snake ate one baby bird and another baby drowned in the pool, (oops) it does not mean all is lost. Mom and Dad Bluebird are still around, happily eating mealworms, and guarding the house from renegade sparrows until spring.