Eastern Bluebird

About the Eastern Bluebird

The Eastern Bluebird is one of the most beloved birds in America - the male royal blue above with a rusty-orange throat and breast and clean white belly, the female a soft gray-blue echo of the same pattern. They sit upright and round-shouldered on wires and fence posts, dropping to the grass for insects.

Bluebirds are cavity nesters that cannot excavate their own holes, which nearly proved their undoing when starlings and House Sparrows claimed the available cavities. The recovery driven by volunteer nest-box trails is one of conservation's great success stories, and bluebird boxes on ranch fences are now part of the Texas landscape.

In Texas, Eastern Bluebirds are year-round residents across most of the state, gathering in loose winter flocks that work fields and cedar breaks for berries, with numbers swelled by northern migrants.