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aggressive birds), the excess population must be removed if the bluebird population is to remain healthy and reproduce only those individuals with the qualities that enable them to survive in an often environmentally hostile world.
Through the ecological process known as natural selection, predators — natural predators — remove the unwary, the runt, the slightly slow and those individuals not aggressive enough to secure and maintain a territory and a mate. There are other ecological factors at work here that may be beyond human comprehension. Natural predation keeps bluebird populations at a healthy, vibrant and reproductively active level.
In our efforts to attract and protect bluebirds, we increase the population. It is an ecological truth that the predators on a given population increase proportionally with the prey species.
Recently I have received phone calls and letters from readers dismayed by predation on bluebirds by hawks and snakes. This column is my attempt to urge readers to develop a more scientific attitude and be more realistic in their thinking about bluebirds. By understanding and accepting their basic wildness, we can appreciate Sialia sialis more.
A number of years ago, I was the observer of bluebird nesting from selection of the territory (it included a nest box I had just put up), through courtship, nest building, egg laying, hatching and feeding of the young. This occurred on the grounds of The Madeira
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