I have recently joined a local conservation club that is heavily involved in bluebirds (among other things). I approached them about getting some nesting boxes for my property.

One of the members came out yesterday and helped me put out five nesting boxes.

I will try and get some pics of the boxes, they are a work of art.

Anyhow, we got the boxes up yesterday and by this afternoon we had bluebirds. Lots of them. My son is nine years old, and I set him up with a log book. We will keep track of the nesting boxes and document the number of eggs, fledglings, and number of nestings.

This is a lot of fun so far. I know several other people that have bluebird trails, and I am beginning to understand the attraction.

The club website: http://www.briceprairieconservation.org/

I can post my bluebird nesting data here if anyone is interested.

I am not convinced I can live with the guilt I assume when putting up bluebird houses!!

If there are lots of house sparrows in your area:

The first year I had a house sparrow kill a female bluebird in the one house I had up. After that I have made war on house sparrows but it is a never ending war.

Sparrows will drive off the bluebirds trying to nest. You need to keep a close eye on the houses and clean out the trashy nests that sparrows build (loosely placed grass, feathers, and trash). Bluebirds build a nicely constructed, dense, nest of grasses.

Buy a sparrow trap. They must be monitored all the time in case other birds are trapped. Close it off when you are not going to be around. The best one I have found is:

http://www.sparrowtraps.net/

I trapped 109 (?) house sparrows the first year I used it, and gladly killed every one! That was the year the male sparrow killed the female bluebird.

Of course the trap isn't going to catch every sparrow but it helps. I use white proso millet for bait (which I feed to the song birds all winter long anyway). Sprinkle some millet around the outside and up by the entrance. Once you catch the first sparrow it attracts better and you catch more sparrows. I'm waiting for the northern birds (Harris sparrows, etc.) to depart here before starting my trapping.

My yard isn't big enough for more than one bluebird nest though I have three houses up. Bluebirds don't like other bluebirds as neighbors. Usually the pair that nest in my yard raise two broods of 4 to 5 young. 2007 was a bumper year when they raised 5 broods and cranked out about 16 or 17 young.

And, unfortunately but true, bluebirds aren't people birds. I have never seen them nest in heavily populated neighborhoods or where they don't have direct access to "wooded" areas.

I try to do my best at perpetuating a doomed species but it requires a bit of attention so that you don't inadvertently make things worse. A neighbor a couple years ago had sparrows nesting in a bluebird house and the bluebirds nesting in an old hollow hence post in her backyard!

Bluebirds are the state bird of NY ! Thanks for helping out .

I tried the same thing, we have way too many starlings and sparrows, they just cant compete. I dont have the time to trim the starlings & sparrows, in one summer I managed to trap over 2,100, I didn't make a dent in their numbers.