In March of this year, I was invited out to share some information about our native Eastern Bluebird population with old and new friends residing at Seashore Highlands Retirement Community. The open landscape of the Seashore Highlands campus offers a wonderful habitat for bluebirds and several residents of the Villas already had bluebird boxes in place. Really, this was an open learning environment for all of us. I simply facilitated the discussion with photos, powerpoint information and handouts. 

I have in some way been associated with bluebirds and birds in general, since I was a teenager, due to my mother's interest in birds. She started, as many people do, with feeding the birds in her yard, learning about them, expanding her knowledge with books. She even took a bird identification class with birder, Judith Toups, columnist, author and "Mother of Birding in Mississippi."

So we started with a small presentation on bluebird habitat and learned that our birds stay here all year long, as opposed to migrating as they do in some other parts of the country. Topics included in the presentation were:


Season: starts around March 1 and can run into August

Habitat

Distance between boxes: about a 100 yards

Mating rituals

Nest building

Egg hatching: about 2 weeks after last egg is laid

Fledging: about 2 weeks after they hatch

Removing old nests

2nd and even 3rd nests

What do they eat

Where to see them

How long do they live

Predators


Our group was interactive, curious, polite and involved. Lots of laughs about the poor male mating behavior and lots of respect when we talked about how the male helps with feeding the babies and stays around until they fledge. Residents were also, and have been, interested in the existing bluebird boxes and the newly installed boxes on the Seashore Highlands campus. Future plans are for an extended bluebird trail for next season.

By John Lipscomb, Naturalist (Seashore Highlands Board Member & Resident Family Member)