Eastern Bluebird
(Sialia sialis)

Requirements and Limiting Factors

Eastern Bluebird Habitat Requirements Summary Table
Habitat Component	Habitat Requirements
Food - Young	Small, tender insects at hatching. Larger insects as maturity is reached.
Food - Adult	Insects, especially grasshoppers, crickets, katydids, and beetles; and earthworms, spiders, millipedes, centipedes, sow bugs, and snails.
	Fruits of dogwood, hawthorn, wild grape, and sumac and hackberry seeds in the winter months.
	Fruits such as blackberries, bayberries, fruit of honeysuckle, Virginia creeper, red cedar, and pokeberries.
Nesting Cover	Natural tree cavities, rotted stumps, wooden fence posts or artificial nesting boxes located in or in close proximity to open fields, roadsides, meadows, mowed yards, golf courses, cemeteries, or farmlands.
Brood-Rearing Cover	Same requirements as nesting cover. Nestlings remain in the cavity/nest dependent on adult bluebirds until fledging roughly 15 to 18 days after hatching.
Winter Cover	Nest boxes, woodland edges, fence rows, open fields, mowed yards, cemeteries, and farmlands where adequate ratios of snags exist with open grassy areas, and fruit-bearing trees and shrubs produce a food source.
Water	Water requirements for bluebirds are met through daily food intake.
Interspersion	Prefer a complex of open, low-growing grassy fields, either mown or growing freely, widely scattered trees, berry-producing shrubs and vines, snags, and perches in the form of trees, shrubs, utility wires, telephone poles, or fence posts.
Minimum Habitat Size	100 yards or more is required between two nesting cavities that are actively being used.