Traditionally, we use Valentine's Day as a reminder for folks to erect new bluebird boxes and to clean out those that accumulated dirt and clutter over the past several months. Boxes hung to attract nesting bluebirds often double as cold-weather roost boxes for nuthatches, chickadees, titmice, and wrens--as well as bluebirds--and all these avifauna tend to leave droppings, feathers, and other detritis that needs to be removed. It's a good idea NOT to remove any nesting material that appears to have been deposited in 2003.

Here in the Carolina Piedmont, Southern Flying Squirrels, Glaucomys volans, also occupy bluebird boxes (right), and the red cedar strips they collect to insulate their nests often get soggy from winter rains. When a squirrel nest has been abandoned, toss out the bedding, but if there's a momma squirrel with a litter leave her alone until the babies are weaned. After all, flying squirrels also need places in which to nest, and natural cavities become increasingly scare for all sorts of creatures as we humans cut down mature trees.

Although some folks like to sanitize bluebird nestboxes with a mild solution of bleach, we suggest you simply use a wire brush to knock loose old bird droppings--and to remove the tubes that Pipeorgan Mud Dauber wasps often build in nestboxes intended for birds. These clay cylinders contain lots of carcasses from spiders that served as food for the developing wasp larvae that likely overwintered in their pupal stage. Unfortunately, an active population of mud daubers can nearly fill a bluebird box with tubes, so there's not much choice than to destroy the insect nests if you have hope for bluebird tenants this year.

In the fields and pastures near Hilton Pond Center, it's common in mid-February to see flocks of 15 or so Eastern Bluebirds--often perched on power lines (left) that border grassy fields that containing winter-active insects. A bluebird watches intently until some subtle movement betrays the position of a ground beetle or other potential prey. Then the bird swoops to the ground, grabs the insect with its bill, gulps it down, and returns to a lookout perch on the aerial wire above.

Winter bluebird flocks may consist of a single large family: two parents and their offspring from up to three successive broods produced the preceding spring and summer. Such a flock obviously consists of birds that live year-round in the Carolina Piedmont, but we also host bluebirds from further north that come down to bask in our milder winter weather prior to their departure later in the spring.

Some year-round resident bluebirds banded at Hilton Pond Center apparently maintain pair bonds and explore potential nest sites from autumn right through the beginning of breeding season in late March. And any day now, second-year birds hatched in 2002 will be getting down to the business of selecting their first mates. All these old and new bluebird pairs will be choosing nestboxes very soon--all the more reason to have your bluebird boxes cleaned and in tenant-ready condition by Valentine's Day or a few days thereafter.