Painting by Linda Duncan

Bluebird Trail

Bluebird eggs in a nest. Painting by Linda Duncan

Bluebirds are beautiful! They are known for their stunning blue feathers, with males sporting bright blue plumage and females featuring a more muted, grayish-blue tone.

In 2011, Old Rag Master Naturalists installed this bluebird trail with 15 next boxes to encourage breeding pairs. Because of habitat loss, pesticide use, and competition from non-native species like house sparrows, by the 1970s the bluebird population in N. America had been reduced by as much as 90%.

Hoover Ridge provides the kind of environment bluebirds thrive in -- open fields and woodlands with scattered trees and shrubs. You may observe them foraging, as they fly from low perches to seize grasshoppers, caterpillars, and beetles from the ground. As autumn approaches, they start eating dogwood berries.

In the spring, a bluebird pair will build a nest of dry grass and pine needles in one of these boxes. They lay 4-5 light blue eggs, which hatch from 12-18 days later. After two-and-a-half weeks, the baby bluebirds fledge, or fly from the nest.
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The bluebirds, once scarce here, now flash blue across the fields, a welcome sign of resilience.