The Bluebirds Are Back!

It’s always an exciting day when we discover “our” bluebirds have returned! A pair of them showed up about two weeks ago and immediately staked out one of our front-yard birdhouses. We always wonder if they’re the same pair we’ve had for the past few years, but it’s hard to know for certain.

There is also a second bluebird house in front, that is about 50 feet away from the other one. Usually what happens is the bluebirds raise their first clutch of young in the birdhouse that is closer to the road, and then they later move into the second house to raise another clutch.

We always have a pair of bluebirds that nest in a birdhouse out back, which works out well for both pairs of bluebirds since I believe they need a pretty large territory. We haven’t noticed if they’re back in the area yet.

However, something very interesting has happened this spring:

We have one pair of bluebirds at what we’ll call the “front birdhouse #1” and a second pair of bluebirds that has staked out “front birdhouse #2”! We figured that wouldn’t last long, that they would fight over who gets the right to live, nest and hunt in the front yard. Well, they seem to be getting along just fine and we are stunned.

Well, we’re also feeling quite blessed because it’s so cool to get to see four bluebirds in our front yard!

But there’s one more cool thing I wanted to share with you:

Our weather has been quite cold so a minimal amount of insects have been available for the bluebirds to catch and eat. My husband Bill decided to augment their diet with some mealworms he purchased at NW Seed & Pet. And boy, do the birds love them! (and they love Bill, too, I think)

You’ll notice in the photo to the left that they weren’t too impressed with a recent freak snowstorm, though, but the “mealworm delivery service” (a.k.a. Bill) still came through for them.

Each morning, Bill’s routine is to put out two small dishes of mealworms — one near birdhouse #1 and one near birdhouse #2. The bluebirds swoop down to their respective dishes as soon as Bill starts to walk away and gobble up the feast!

So we have very happy bluebirds here at the Mulvihill homestead. I’ll try to get more  photos to share with you over the season.