Bluebird Population Recovery

Feeder and bath showing 1 Bluebird inside, 2 on the ledges, 1 on the bath, and a House Finch on the bath. The feeder contains mealworms, Bluebird Buffet, soaked Currant raisins, and dried blueberries that have been soaked. Taken from indoors on 12/29/2001 @ 7:30 AM EST.

Feeding only Bluebirds:
I have noticed that there are only 3 ways to just about completely guarantee that only BBs will eat the food I have provided for them. They worked for me anyway. The following assumes that you already have Bluebirds using your feeder and breeding season is over:

1) Put out mealworms, buffet, suet pcs, etc, at night. Use only enough for them to finish eating when they first visit the feeder in the morning. I've noticed that BBs are the first to wake up and eat here in MD, even before the Carolina Wrens. The Carolina Wrens used to eat MOST of the mealies until I started this placement method. A single BB eats about 4 to 6+ mealies per early visit. I often had 1/3 of a cup gone in 20 minutes, well before the street lights even went out.

(I like the C. Wrens but my objective is exclusively feeding Bluebirds)

2) For subsequent feedings later in the day, use soaked Zante Currant raisins. Shopper's Food (in MD) had good prices here. My flock of 10 would eat up to 3/4 of a cup daily if below 15 F. Don't ever switch to 100% currants for too long or they will eventually stop returning after about 3 mos. Unfortunately I learned this from experience. The good thing is that I saw no other birds but occasional Mockingbirds and lots of Starlings TRY to eat them...

3) Use a Dr Giess(sp?) BB feeder from W.B.Ctr. and block off 2 opposite sides with panel board. The currants are placed in the now protected corner so the Mockings & Starlings can't get them. It worked. I blocked the NW sides so the currants wouldn't dry out so fast in the winter winds.

Note: I only trained 2 parents to eat the mealworms and they trained their brood of 5. For the longest time I only saw 7 BBs use the feeder in the winter (which was probably this same family). A few other BBs were attracted to but confused by the feeder. I then replaced one of the glass slot opening sides with a wood paneling one with a 1.5" round entrance. This entrance type naturally attracts BBs. After a few weeks I was counting 10 of them using the feeder. I spent a lot of time in the mornings counting them and often it was too dark to see them all! On the down side I had to coat the steel post with a lot of insect repellant every 2 days to keep ants from getting to the currants when above 45-55 F, regardless of the season.

Better solutions do exist for ant problems. The "Jail" style Bluebird feeder seems like I good design for a feeder but I haven't tried it. Just by looking...I doubt any new Bluebirds would be confused by it and temporarilly trapped inside of it. This confusion did occur in my feeder; even with the smoked glass sides.

Back || Bluebird Population Recovery Home Page