Springtime For Bluebirds... And Happiness!

It's that time of year again.  The time of year the birds are in love.  That's right.  Springtime brings out the best of the birds and the bunnies.  As I have posted before, I have an old birdhouse that I put on the corner of the property.

Over the years I have mostly had Tufted Titmouse pairs take up residence in the spring.  Yes a Tufted Titmouse is a real bird for all of you laughing like Beavis.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Tufted_Titmouse/id

One year I had a pair of Red Cardinals move in and lay eggs.  I was glad to see them, but by the time I noticed they had moved in, their chicks were grown.  Three days later they moved out.

I have to say my old birdhouse has held together over the years.  What's funny, is that, it's actually a parakeet house I bought from Pet Supermarket years ago.  I used oil enamel paint to seal the wood so it would protected in our Florida environment.

So this year the family was wondering if anyone would move in.  Also, if they did, who would move in?  Well, about a week ago we got our answer.  And like they say on the internet, "Pics or it didn't happen!"  So here's who moved in.

That my friends, are Eastern Bluebirds.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Bluebird/overview

It seems like they are digging the new digs.  But will they lay eggs?  Let me answer that with another picture.

One egg, blue egg?  Am I Doctor Seuss?  Wait, there's more?

A few days later another egg appeared.  So let's check in a few days after that.

So now it's one egg, two egg, three egg, blue egg?

But really it was interesting to see how they went about nesting.  First, they removed all of the old nest.  Then, they built a completely new nest.  After that, they started laying an egg every other day.  The nest hasn't been checked in a few days so there might be a few more eggs waiting.

Bluebirds will lay anywhere from three to eight eggs, but can have more than one brood during the spring.  So we might have another brood of eggs laid after this one.

Here are some more fun photos of the bluebirds.

The following are my previous blog posts about my birdhouses.

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2017/10/make-little-birdhouse-in-my-backyard.html

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2018/02/make-little-birdhouse-in-my-backyard.html

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2018/03/make-little-birdhouse-in-my-backyard.html

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2018/04/make-little-birdhouse-in-my-backyard.html

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-birdhouse-community-apartments.html


Oh, and if you sang the title of this blog post to the Broadway play, "The Producers," you win.  For those who don't know what I'm talking about watch this.

Make a Little Birdhouse In my ... Backyard?

A long time ago in a backyard far away....  I put up a bird feeder.  It was really successful.  As in, the birds were eating one pound of birdseed a day.  In other words, one 20 lbs. bag of birdseed wouldn't last a month.  Sometimes it would barely make it to two weeks.

This lead to problems.  Namely, the squirrels started to take over.  They would toss all the bird food on the ground except the sunflower seeds, which they would eat.  But they wouldn't let the birds have any of the birdseed.  So I did what any angry American would do.  I started shooting the squirrels out of the bird feeder.

This lead to more problems, as in, what is the legality of firing a 12 gauge shotgun within the city limits of Lutz?  After I'd shot the tenth squirrel it really dawned on me that they were coming as fast as I could shoot them.  Also, thanks to all the practice I had out duck hunting, I'm a pretty good shot.

Now for those who would say that I killed those furry rats for nothing, know this.  I took them over to the bottom of the tree where the hawks had their nest.  That way, the didn't go to waste.  And the hawks had some nice squirrel to feed their baby hawks.  And for those who think I'm having a bit of fun by saying a mated pair of hawks lived in a tree just off our backyard, well, take a glance at this.

In this next picture you can actually see my birdfeeder, and the hawk flying right by it.  They did their best at keeping the squirrels honest.  The birdfeeder is in the lower left of the photo, and the hawk is the giant blur in the middle.

In this photo you can see the hawk giving me the, "What are you looking at chowderhead? look."  I know it looks like I am far away in this picture, but remember when I took my camera was not near as nice as the ones they have now.  Yeah, my camera took floppy disks.  I'm not making that up.  So the quality of this photo is not great, but the hawk is actually pretty close to me.

Back to the birdhouses.  During this same time I bought and painted a few birdhouses.  When one would rot and fall apart, I would buy, paint, and hang up another.  I had the birdhouses hanging from a limb in one of the oak trees.  I've had a number of birdhouses, and as far as I know, I've had four families of birds live in them over the years. 

I just learned not long ago that the proper name for these small birds is a "Tufted Titmouse. (I'm not making that up.)  One time I had a pair of red cardinals raise a family in one of the houses.  That was really neat.  What I thought was weird was that, they only stayed for about three weeks, and then everyone was gone.  The babies had grown up, and moved on.  

So due to the cost of the seed, and multiple problems with squirrels I gave up putting bird food in the bird feeder.  I also gave up hanging my last birdhouse since it kept falling down.  I wasn't sure if it was the rubber string dry-rotting or the squirrels chewing on it.

So the other day I was looking at my old birdhouse.  It was still in good shape.  I decided to do something about it.  I decided to hang it ... somewhere.  That's when I looked over to where my birdfeeder still was.  "Well, that could be an easy solution," I thought.  I'd just take off the birdfeeder and put up the birdhouse in it's place.  Way back when, I intentionally put the feeder on a metal galvanized pole to keep the squirrels at bay.  It was somewhat successful doing that.  So I figured it would be a good spot to hang the new/old birdhouse.

Here's the birdhouse.

As you can see I painted it a dull green/gray so it would blend in with the oak tree.  Here's a picture taken from a bit further away.

I realize that birdhouses are supposed to be up a little before springtime, so that either makes me half a year late or about half a year early.  Either way, I hope that some birds find it as a nice little place to live.  I hope it will be birds and not wasps.  They have a way of getting into everything down here.

If anything moves in you can be sure I that will take pictures and write a blog post about it.  And if any squirrels come near it...  Well, I can't talk about that.  Also, that was a car backfiring.  Or fireworks.  Or something.

If you didn't understand the pop culture reference in the title, give this a listen.  Also, you may contract an earworm.  Be warned.