1124 



Rural School Leaflet 



Bluebird 



BLUEBIRD 



Size. — Larger than an English sparrow, 

 smaller than a robin. 



General color. — Above blue ; throat and 

 breast brownish red; belly white. 



Distinctive features. — The shape is dis- 

 tinctive, for the bird appears as though 

 somewhat round-shouldered. The male 

 has a habit of fluttering one wing when 

 alighting. These features together with 

 the general color will distinguish the 

 bluebird. 



The first robin has been seen in tlie 

 orchard, scolding at the drifts that cling 

 so long to the fence rows. An early 

 peeper chirps from the pond by the 

 roadside, and the whole landscape steams 

 beneath the bright March sun. A gentle breeze brings us news from 

 the southland and gives us the first fresh odor of spring. Then out 

 of the clear heavens comes the call of the bluebird, gentle and soft and 

 full of gladness, breathing of life and happiness and joy to come. What 

 a wealth of feeling comes with those first mellow notes, what friend- 

 liness, what good fellowship toward all nature. The robin scolds at 

 the surly snowdrifts, he sulks whenever the weather turns cold; but 

 not so the bluebird. The March winds with their snows and ice hold 

 no terrors for him, his merry call is never without optimism. 



The bluebird sometimes arrives in Ithaca as early as the last week of 

 February, but usually it is the first week of March that brings him. We 

 always begin to listen for him on the day following the first robin, and many, 

 many times he has come just as we have expected him. Occasionally 

 the robin gets here a week or more before the bluebird. That is usually 

 a sign of more cold weather, for the bluebird is a better weather prophet 

 than the robin, and is not so often overtaken by the late snows. Then 

 come the song sparrow, the wild goose, the red-winged and the crow 

 blackbird; and it is the middle of March. 



Now is the time to have the nesting box ready to coax the 

 bluebird from orchard or roadside to a more intimate place beneath 

 the window or on a post in the yard. The bluebird delights in a 

 nesting box, almost preferring it to a hollow limb in the orchard; and 

 now that the modem orchard has so few dead limbs and knot holes, 

 we should feel it our duty to build the nesting boxes. Almost any 



