Eastern Bluebird

The Eastern Bluebird is a small, round-shouldered thrush of open country: the male is deep blue above with a rusty-orange throat and breast and a white belly, the female a softer grey-blue with the same warm breast. Perched upright on a wire or post it is unmistakable, and the blue flares brightest in direct sun against the bird's habit of dropping to open ground.

It hunts by watching from a low perch and dropping to the ground for insects — grasshoppers, crickets, beetles and caterpillars — and shifts to berries and fruit through the winter. A cavity nester, it uses old woodpecker holes and rotted snags and takes readily to nest boxes, where it raises two or even three broods a season in a cup of fine grasses.

In Maine the Eastern Bluebird breeds in open farmland, orchards and field edges, much of its presence owed to the nest-box trails that line back roads and pastures. Those boxes and exposed perches make it one of the more cooperative subjects — work a known box or a favoured wire and wait for the bird to perch clean and catch the light. Low morning sun is what turns the blue from dull to electric.