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“Gone away is the bluebird” goes the winter song. Here in the Virginia Piedmont and Shenandoah Valley the bluebirds haven’t gone anywhere. Looking out the bedroom window I often exchange winter glances with a bluebird perched on the rain gutter drinking water the morning sun has melted off our frozen tin roof.
During the winter, bluebirds roam the fields and fencerows in small family groups — adults and the young they raised during the previous summer. Such flocks tend to remain in the same general area where they spent the summer unless extremely bad weather causes them to temporarily move southward.
Bluebirds may use the nesting boxes in which they raised their young as winter roosting places — a good reason not to remove nest boxes during the winter. A wellknown photograph appeared years ago in National Geographic magazine showing the inside of a bluebird box opened at night near Beltsville, Md. Nearly a dozen bluebirds were clustered inside. More frequently they roost in abandoned woodpecker nests in dead tree snags.
Whether to clean out old bluebird nests in the fall is a matter of some debate. While the old nests may provide some insulation for over wintering roosting bluebirds, studies have shown that old nests may harbor parasites that may infest the inhabitants. Of course old nests remain in natural cavities but tend to decompose faster there than in artificially built nesting boxes. Other
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