I yell “baby blues” in a singing voice to call mine to the mealworms. I keep a mealworm farm year round, only rotating two tubs to keep it simple and it’s been the most money saving thing I’ve done for my blues. Mealworms are expensive. They saved my bluebird babies last season when we had a temp drop with 3 days of rain, but I had to go out every 2 hours and put them out. I had lost a nest the year before that due to the same rain and cold bc I wasn’t prepared with mealworms so I was hell bent on saving them last year and thank goodness it worked. They are such beautiful creatures.
Your Bluebird feeder is brilliant and so is your nestbox..easy to access! I feed these bluebirds on the chair with a back hiding the tray from other birds right beside their nestbox on my patio. I have a sparrow spooker attached to the post but so far I have not seen any sparrows here. I live 1 hour inland near the West Coast California. Common nearby are many songbirds., scrub jays, robins, mocking birds, cow birds, black Phoebe's
So you are dealing with the Western Bluebird where are the mountain bluebird. They have a different Nest box size requirement than the Eastern subspecies
@@crzrck Yes I notice about 3 families a day on my walk. Right the Western Nestbox hole is 1 9/16" diameter. There are many communities of Western Bluebirders in SoCal with organized Bluebird conservation activist volunteers. That's likely why I haven't seen any European hous sparrows. The Mountain Bluebirds are found here in the Sierras mountains.
I've eliminated my house sparrow problem (at least for a while) with my sparrow repeating trap & the Van Ert nestbox trap. Total of 7 of them. My bluebirds are nesting in peace-5 eggs counted yesterday. I started feeding them crumbled bird suet in a little blue ramekin on a nearby post and now they are eating of it. Your video has inspired me to step up my feeding game!
@@crzrck In town, there's tons of sparrows, some of my friends feed them despite my protests. I'm out in the country near mostly woods & cow pastures, so not so bad. But when I had chickens, they were a pest from the chicken feed.
I would walk up to their nest box and put the steel tray on top with mealworms and would give a specific whistle. The idea is to get them to associate you with that tray with food. Once they figure that out you can put the tray anywhere
The main thing that wiped out the bluebirds was all the dead and hollow trees cut for firewood during the oil crisis back in the 70s. It just got alot of people to use wood stoves.
Bluebirds were already in terrible trouble by the late 1950s, long before the oil crisis. If that argument is true it will be the same for the wood ducks
Oh Rick I can do that call. I wasn't sure what birds made it but I've used it many times in the forest and gotten responses. Excellent. Thanks! Hey what bird uses the two note sort of a low whistle and then an even lower whistle? I just taught myself to whistle about a year ago.
Sharon Bender that's just a generic whistle. In the past I just call him and call them blue. I love bluebirds tremendously, but they are just not very common. So I consider myself very fortunate to get a pair most years
How do you deal with your sparrows? I use a spring loaded nest box trap and a big pendulum type trap made from hardware cloth. The nest trap is my favorite of the 2 if I see sparrows taking over a box. It can be moved quickly from one box to another. Sparrows make great cat food. A 22 rifle works well also. I’ve had them kill my bluebirds to take their nest boxes. I’ve probably got at least 40 eastern bluebirds that live around my 8 acre pecan orchard.
I trap and shoot house sparrows year round. I have several types of traps I have Nest box traps all over the place. Usually by the first week of April there are no hospitals around whatsoever. I have a video or two about the type of trap that I use if you look around on my videos
Thoroughly enjoyed your vid with great tips. I want to attract bluebirds here but to be truthful a lot is against my success. First I have a small lot 120x60', second as far as I know Ive never seen a bluebird here. Here Ive tried to make food unavailable for HS and last year I trapped and killed hundreds, but it feels more like a losing effort. Anyway Ive had my Gilbertson box up for about a week now. Im guessing in my location it will be another type of bird that may try my box before a bluebird. Ive also looked at that same feeder you have currently have that cheap hanging blue tube type feeder for meal worms. So guess its a waiting game for me.
Bluebirds are what you would call locally common. In theory they should be everywhere in a Suburban setting. Truth are there often relegated to areas around a golf course. At least where I'm at. The spot I moved to was specifically for Purple Martin. But there are also tree swallows. So I put up a box for tree swallows. Eventually a pair of bluebirds showed up there is a golf course about 4 miles from me with bluebird houses and there is another area about a mile south of me that has a few bluebird houses I do not get them every year. The years that I do get a pair of them they show up the first week of May. I had two pairs one year but that was a couple years ago. In my travels I can count on one hand where I saw a bluebird just by chance. The only place that I saw them on a regular basis is in Amish Country in Northeast Indiana. Check your local golf course and see if they have Bluebird houses up. If you're near that golf course there is a chance that you might get some
@@crzrck Thanks for responding so quickly, I dont have golf course near me but there is one outside of town, but not close to me. I do happen to live in central Indy actually more south of. Wouldnt be surprised that a tree swallow might nest in my box. I appreciate your thoughts on what could happen in my area. Also that a box needs to be cleaned out after a nesting is over.
Last year my hubby made me a bluebird house made from cedar and within 3 days, we had our first occupants. They managed 2 nests resulted in 7 young. Regrettably, this year we had house sparrows move in and I removed 2 nests and had couple male bluebirds in yard for couple weeks. I don't know if they couldn't find females or if the sparrows fought them off. Our 2 boxes remain empty and I keep seeing sparrows attempting to use the house they first built in. It's late April in CT and it seems that the bluebirds are gone. Haven't heard or seen one in at least a week. I'm so sad.
You can't have bluebirds and house sparrows coexist they don't. If you killed the house sparrows bluebirds would still be there. House sparrows will kill bluebirds they will also kill their babies and destroy their eggs
@@crzrck this is true for Chickadees as well. We lost 5 babies last year. I've since gotten aggressive with my .22 and traps with good success. We hope the 'Dees will hatch another brood this spring - my Vanhert traps are at the ready for the HOSP. We had 7 Bluebird fleglings last spring - a pair had 2 broods which was pretty awesome. Shenandoah Valley VA.
but do you have to be in an open area to do this. i see that you are in an open area. i live in a wooded area but its not open. Ive seen eastern blue birds but they just dont go to my feeder. any suggestions?
Bluebirds. Use woodland habitat to winter in. They breed in edge Habitat.. this is why they like golf courses and orchatds... they have to trained to use a feeder since they are insect eaters
I have the mealworm feeder with the dome on top that you can adjust up/down so larger birds don’t feast on the worms. I still haven’t seen mom or dad come to it. I have a bluebird nest box with five eggs in it! I hope mom n dad learn to get the worms before they hatch?! I placed the feeder behind box. Should I place in front... in route to box? Remove dome until they get used to it? I trained then to feed in a container but other birds were eating all the worms🤦🏻♀️
I have another video which shows you how to train them come when you have mealworms. You don't have to feed all the birds in the neighborhood. Offer them food in the morning and in the evening. They will actually let you know when they want some mealworms. But you don't have to leave them out there all day for all the other birds. They recognized the call that I use and it goes straight into the feeder
@@plzhd2 I can't locate it on my phone but I made it probably close to 10 years ago. To make it real simple if you can place a small feeding dish on top of their birdhouse, go out there use a distinct whistle leave the dish and step away and watch. Do this a few times and they will associate your whistle with food so you can call them anytime. It doesn't have to be a whistle it could be a call to
I move it whenever I want to. I typically will put the silver dish on top of the nest box with mealworms first. Once they recognize the dish as a source of food it doesn't matter where I put it
@@crzrck So basically, they will learn to associate the feeder itself with food, regardless of where it’s located - cool! Last year was our first year to have a nest box, but I got the feeder late in the season so they never really had a chance to use it. Thank you!
@@margaretmathis4775 it will get to the point where they associate you with food. If they see you they'll wait. I whistle for them to come. I don't keep the feeder filled all the time I typically will go out early in the morning and give them worms. And then if I come home in the evening and they're out there I will give him some more
@@gstimman1 nature Unlimited... 260 - 593 - 0610 extension1. Leave a voicemail message with your phone number after you hit the number one. It's an Amish owned company out of Indiana they will mail it to you. Tell them Rick Cruz sent you. They will appreciate that. It's made locally so it's not made in China or any other crazy place by Amish Craftsmen. It comes in a different color as well comes in a tan color.
Yes call nature Unlimited, leave a voicemail at 260 593 0610 extension 1. Leave a voicemail with your phone number they will call you back. They are Amish and everything is Amish made. You better call soon because I was there last weekend and they're having a shortage of poly-wood that they make this product out of. Tell them Rick Cruz sent you. These people are my friends and I get all of my product from them because they are just really good products and it is a small family-run business wonderful people I've known for over 20 years
@@crzrck Ric.wanted to Thank you for the contract information for the Blue bird feeder.Called the man.he returned my call the same day, took my order and shipped the next day.I received in a few days.What a great feeder.Quailtiy workmanship.I hung up,waiting for blue birds to arrive. Thx again.
@@tomrudy8407 you are more than welcome. You just help support a small business that's Amish run family run business. They are really great people to do business with thank you for patronizing that you didn't have to do that
It's Amish made. From a place called nature Unlimited and Topeka Indiana. Phone number 260 593 0610 ex 1.. leave a voicemail and they will call you back. Tell them you want the blue bird feeder that Rick Cruz has bought they will know who you were talking about. You can tell them that I sent you. They are good friends of mine and you're supporting an Amish made product and business. They come in two colors at least they used to there's also a tan one
You can get it at troyer's Birds Paradise or nature Unlimited in Topeka Indiana. I don't know if you can find them online or not because they are both Amish. I do have the phone numbers for both if you are interested
