Blues Bring Good Cheer

Eastern Bluebirds do really bring good cheer.  I know of many people who relish sighting these thrushes.  It is a simple matter of putting up a nest box in the appropriate place, and you soon have nesting birds.  Bluebirds like open woodlands or edges where an open field adjoins a forested parcel.  They sing chur-lee or cheer-lee.  I hear them every morning now—bringing me good cheer.

This photograph is a fly-in sequence provided by Dr. Spencer Moore.

The Bluebirds

 

 

This is one of the silver linings to the Labor Day Bastrop Complex fire.  So much was destroyed.  Yet, the fire opened the landscape in such a way as to allow more Eastern Bluebirds to visit and colonize this area.  Bluebirds do not like densely forested areas.  They prefer open woodlands, or more specifically, they are edge birds.  Where one might find grassland abutting a woodlot or grove of old growth pecans, you will find bluebirds.

Bluebirds are insectivores.  Their unusual method of foraging for food is notable; they engage in ground-sallying.  They will perch on a fence line or small tree or shrub, stare at the ground.  They sally to the ground, capture their targeted insect, and return to their perch before eating. Bluebirds will supplement their diet with fruit and small berries particularly in colder months.

Bluebirds are cavity nesters.  Old growth pecans with cavities provide a great number of nesting opportunities.  You can provide additional nesting opportunities by placing nest boxes in your area.  Make sure you place your box about six feet high and face it away from the harsh afternoon sun.

Pecan Grove

April 28, 2010
Waco, TX

I came to Waco yesterday for a meeting and decided that before I left for home I would go visit the Pecan Grove at the Soccer Fields. The Eastern Bluebirds were plentiful and I was able to see both the male and female Summer Tanager. However, the best bird of the day was a female Northern Oriole. My list of birds is below.

Black Vulture 4
Great Blue Heron (overhead) 1
European Starling 7
Mourning Dove 5
Eastern Bluebird 14
Summer Tanager 3
Northern Cardinal 5
Great Crested Flycatcher 1 and heard several more
Yellow Rumped “Myrtle” Warbler 4
Red Bellied Woodpecker 3
Downy Woodpecker 2
Northern “Baltimore” Oriole 1
House Finch 2
Turkey Vulture 1
Common Grackle 3
Great Tailed Grackle 5
Brown Headed Cowbird 4
Carolina Chickadee 1
American Crow 3
Scissortail Flycatcher 1

Pine Warblers

The Pine Warblers seem to be increasing in numbers and frequency in Central Texas. Many are saying it was about three years ago that this species began to show around Lake Waco. Today many local birders are reporting them. A small group of birders went to the Pecan Grove and Soccer Fields last month and were delighted by the sighting of several of these as they hopped along the ground and flew to low lying branches in the grove. Their yellow neck and breasts made sharp contrasts to the blue backs and orange fronts of the Eastern Bluebirds which inhabit this area. Still, others are reporting Pine Warblers at their feeders and bird baths. In fact, this writer has notice far fewer Yellow-rumped Warblers this year and wonders if the Pines are not the cause.

Photographs by Bill Ravenscroft

Eastern Bluebirds & The Pecan Grove

I find myself often roaming the Pecan Grove near the Soccer Fields below Lake Waco Dam in Central Texas. This is prime habitat for Eastern Bluebirds. The old grove of pecans provides abundant nesting cavities. Because of its juxtaposition to the open fields and the adjacent spillway for the water flowing from the impounded lake, this is one of the best birding places within the area. Eastern Bluebirds are species of “the edge effect”. They enjoy and utilize to great success places where forest adjoins field.

Often sighted in the vicinity are Downy and Red Bellied Woodpeckers, Great Crested Flycatchers, Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice. Overhead Great Blue Heron, Great Egrets, and Double Crested Cormorants fly crossing from the river to the lake and back. Raptors and Vultures are sometimes gliding across the fields high above. In the spring and summer, one is treated to some wonderful acrobatics of low and fast flying Barn Swallows. In winter, Brown Creepers forage in the grove, and overhead you can spy ducks and geese. An hour or two any morning spent at this locale is well worth the time.

Photo by Bill Ravenscroft