It all started with a heated birdbath.

I was raised in the city, and until recently had never even seen a Bluebird. In 1992 we moved to the country, where beautiful birds were plentiful. We installed feeders and birdbaths, and discovered the joys of watching  Goldfinches, Cardinals, House Finches, Juncos, Starlings, Cowbirds, Red-Winged Blackbirds, Chickadees, Titmice -- in short, every kind of bird you can imagine -- but no Bluebirds. Oh, I think once I had spotted one perching on a fencepost in the yard for about three seconds before he flew off, but that was the full extent of my contact with them.

Then in the fall of 2000, I decided to install a heated birdbath in my little bird feeding sanctuary. "Heated" is a rather misleading term, since there is nothing even remotely warm about the water in a heated birdbath. This is not a birdie hot-tub we're talking about here. But it does keep the water from freezing solid, and allows the birds to drink, and to bathe when the temperatures allow it. Birds actually stay warmer if they bathe in the winter whenever possible, because a clean feather is a better insulator than a dirty feather.

Anyway, one morning in mid-winter I looked out the kitchen window and couldn't believe my eyes! There were about a dozen birds sitting in a ring around the birdbath. I blinked, rubbed my eyes, ran to get my glasses and looked again, and there they were, Bluebirds!

During the following weeks, I spotted them there a few more times. That spring, I bought a "Bluebird House" and mounted it (I shudder to think of it now) in a tree! Sadly, I didn't see any Bluebirds that spring/summer. A House Wren couple inhabited the nestbox that year.

During the winter of 2001-2002, a friend of mine gave me two more nestboxes that he had made, and in the spring I mounted both of those -- again, in trees. That spring we did have a Bluebird couple visit and decide to make our yard their home. When I eventually did some research on Bluebirds, I was horrified to find that my efforts to help the birds might actually have endangered them.

My interest in observing and photographing these beautiful little birds led to the creation of this website and eventually to opening the Bluebird Nut Cafe, our free discussion forum.

Click on the links below to be taken to the pages that chronicle the whole story of my encounters with Bluebirds - my bumbling mistakes, my steps to correct those mistakes, and the thrill of being a small part of a successful nesting season.