Hawks Versus Bluebirds

For over two decades, 15 bluebird houses on about 35 acres of land here about four miles northwest of Rutersville have sheltered not only bluebirds, but also chickadees and titmouse, along with the too-frequent red wasp nests! But this year, when we had the most successful bluebird nesting season ever, we had by far the lowest bluebird survival rate.

This story begins over five decades ago with my maternal grandmother’s fixation on bluebirds. A resident of the Bluff area south of La Grange, she was a prolific reader of the monthly Reader’s Digest, and she read there, as I recollect, an article about bluebirds needing help from people for places to build nests.

Due to land-clearing and cutting down hollowed-out trees (where bluebirds would otherwise nest), good nesting sites were in need. So Grandma got on her high horse and started promoting bluebird houses to everyone she met. Bluebird houses appeared along the fence lines on nearby county roads, at the family retreat property on Buckner’s Creek west of La Grange, and in country cemeteries Grandma frequented.

I don’t recall who made the birdhouses for her in those years, but she was relentless and went at this work with the fervor of a newly-converted religious fanatic: she had her family who lived in this area “all-in”! Once my father, her son-in-law, retired and moved to the Citzler homestead, he planted almost as many birdhouses as oak trees here!

The bluebird houses were then built by his nephew-in-law, a retired game warden with an interest in conservation and wildlife, who lived on adjoining acreage. Over the past 30 years, I estimate that the two of them (Dad and his nephew/neighbor) mounted about 150 birdhouses along more road fence lines and in more rural cemeteries north and west of La Grange.

Here at the homeplace, the birdhouses are monitored closely from January through June or July. After a clean-out in January, the birds (who typically are here year-round) are watched for signs of nest-building, and that’s when the close checking (every ten to 14 days) begins. The houses are opened from the side, the eggs or baby birds counted, and information recorded. Houses are cleaned out once the babies fledge (fly out), so that a new nest can be started later.

This year, to our joy, we had four houses with successful bluebird nests, one with two successive nests and one with three, all hatching from 4 -5 birds. So we know of seven successful “hatches” and “fledges.” We were so excited to know we could see three dozen bluebirds perching on the wires overhead at the end of July! But then, about August 15, the hawks showed up. . .

We are now down to just five bluebirds. My neighbor actually found one hawk perched on a fencepost pecking at a captured bluebird (he drove it off, but too late! Just a handful of feathers left of that bluebird. . .), and it was routine to see hawks perched in the trees above the bluebirds’ favorite feeding area, a mowed field between our houses. Coopers hawks, redtail hawks, sharpshinned hawks: I’m pretty sure we have had them all drop in for a meal and stay for a while.

They’ll be on their way soon, for bluebirds are surely becoming scarce for hunting hawks now. Let’s keep fingers crossed that there are a few bluebirds that survive the winter. Next year’s another opportunity, and we will still have lots of bluebird houses available . . .