How to Attract Bluebirds to Your Yard – Create the Perfect Environment to Keep Them Happy, Healthy & Eating Bugs

Learning how to attract bluebirds to your yard is beneficial for them and you! Bluebirds are considered to be bearers of good luck in many cultures and they certainly are a welcome sign of spring every year. In addition to their association with good fortune, bluebirds are great at eating many pests that gardeners hate finding on their crops.

Bluebirds are so good at eating insects that they are considered an effective addition to integrated pest management programs for commercial farms and vineyards. Attracting birds to your yard means you can get some of those wonderful benefits, too.

Keep reading to learn more about the three species of bluebirds that call North America home and how to attract them to your yard by providing an appropriate habitat and food.

About Bluebirds

There are three species of bluebirds found in North America. Eastern bluebirds are found from Florida to Texas and up through North Dakota to Maine and parts of Canada. Mountain bluebirds are found in the western stretches of North America sometimes migrating as far south as Mexico and as far north as Alaska. Mountain bluebirds prefer high-elevation open areas with snags (dead standing trees) for nesting. Western bluebirds can be found along the California coast into Oregon, Washington and Idaho, as well as New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, west Texas and into central Mexico.

Bluebird populations have decreased by 90 percent in the last 60 years as their habitats have been destroyed by human activity and invasive species like the house sparrow and starling. Bluebirds nest inside dead trees and rely on insects for their food in summer and berries for food in winter. Clearing dead trees from land has removed their source of shelter and the use of pesticides has decreased their food source, or poisoned what insects remain.

Luckily, there has been a slight increase in population in certain areas where farmers and landowners have placed nesting boxes to welcome bluebirds back to the landscape. Bluebirds help the farmers by eating pests from their crops so it is a mutually beneficial relationship.

You can help bluebird populations, too! Let’s explore how to invite these wonderful birds into our yards and gardens.

Provide Shelter

Bluebirds are secondary cavity-nesters which means they rely on holes in trees that were created by other animals for nest building. Unfortunately for bluebirds, most homeowners don’t want to have dead trees in their yards! Removing dead trees on your property can help keep you and your family safe, but it leaves bluebirds and other animals in a tough spot.

However, there are some solutions. You can cut down the tree but leave a 10-foot (3 m) tall section for birds to nest in or you can install bluebird houses on your property. Bluebird houses can be purchased – the Audubon Society has bluebird houses available through Ace Hardware – or made at home from untreated wood. Cornell University Lab of Ornithology has free plans for building your own eastern bluebird house, mountain bluebird house, and western bluebird house.

Each type of bluebird has slightly different nest needs, but generally the bird houses should be on a pole that is at least 5 feet (1.5 m) off the ground, and facing east towards open habitat. A large yard, open field, or golf course is appropriate. If you have trees, place your nesting box alongside them, but not in the trees. Clean out the birdhouse once the fledglings have left the nest so that the box may be used for a second bluebird brood.

Provide Food

Bluebirds primarily eat insects like beetles, caterpillars, mosquitoes, and grasshoppers in the spring, summer, and fall and feast on berries and fruits to keep them going through the winter. They are partial migratory birds, so they may not be in the far northern regions during the coldest winter months. But having berry-bearing shrubs helps them as they begin migrating back in February and March.

You can attract bluebirds to your yard by providing them with live mealworms. It sounds a little gross, but seeing wriggling mealworms will signal to them that your yard is a great place to feast. (You can find live mealworms from Chewy or your local pet store.) Once they begin visiting your yard, you can switch to dried mealworms or just let them go to work on the pests in your garden.

Planting native shrubs and trees will provide bluebirds with sustenance during the winter months as they begin to prepare their nesting sites. Plants like dogwood, holly, sumac, serviceberry, viburnum, blackberry, oak, pine, black cherry and hackberry are beneficial for bluebirds.