We have been trying, for a couple of years, to attract blue birds at Zephyr Pond. This past weekend we had four arrive at the Lazy W, which is about 18 miles away. It was really exciting for us. They may have been western blue birds? Does anyone know the difference. Does any of you guys have blue birds? What is the best thing to feed them?(For those not familiar with Texas, Zephyr and Lazy W are in the central part of Texas 2 hours north of Austin)

Heybud,
We had success this year attracting Eastern Bluebirds. It wasn't much of a chore; just the correct housing in the correct location. Go to this page of the Wetland Development for Critters thread . The Peterson design houses we built are about 1/2 way down the page; installation near the bottom of the page.
The houses cannot be any closer than about 300 feet apart. They need to be installed in an open area that has access to tree cover within, oh say maybe 100 - 200 feet or so. They like to be able to escape the house to tree cover, yet keep watch on the crib.
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Strangely, as I think I noted within the thread, we also got Purple Martins nesting within a couple of these Bluebird houses. In fact, within a couple hours of installation, the PM's were already checking out the inside of the new digs.(edit note; what we thought were PM's may very well be Tree Swallows based on a John James Audo-Schroeder tune-up). Ultimately, tho, I think we got 2 of the 6 houses nested with Bluebirds.
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edit: a decent Bluebird website

May want to use Google images and search for "Scrub" jays. There are both blues and scrubs in that area.
Peanuts (in shell) is what we feed them. The blues will actually call us out if we forget. They will also eat black oil sunflower seeds. Prefer peanut feeders.
http://www.lookerinc.com/images/2007%20N...0Blue%20Jay.JPG

50 mi so of San Antonio we also have a few Green jays.

Sounds like ahvatsa is confusing bluebirds with bluejays. Anyway..my Eastern Bluebirds eat, in order of preference, mealworms on platform feeders, suet, and peanut pieces they get from an oil sunflower/peanut mix. Not sure how your Texas birds might differ from my cold climate ones.

Schroeder
Yes I am. Now I have something new to look for. Haven't seen one this far south, but will be looking.

Brettski - Are you sure you don't have tree swallows nesting in your bluebird houses? I have had the tree swallows and understand that is quite common. Seems like unusual behavior for purple martins.

Schroeder cracks the ornithological mini-mystery...I think
I do believe that you are correct, Schroeder. (it's no excuse, but it's the truth)...We put those houses up last spring as one of a few dozen projects that we have been slave to at the pond project. Sadly, we still have been unable to find the time to no only inspect them, but to clean them out. Anyway, we are so fine tuned to our little Martin colony (at our principal residence) that we assumed that we were watching subbie PM's. It was very curious, though, that they seemed so attracted to a house that was so low to the ground. Now that I have looked at some on-line pics of tree swallows, MAN...do they look like subbie PM's. I'll bet you are correct and they are T Swallows. This is bad cuz I mis-identified a species right in front of my nose...but...good cuz I can add it to our Wildlife encounters at LNP.
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Thanks

I made some bluebird houses and they came the first year. I was excited. Then the squirrels got them.

I have been eaten up by the blue birds this year. I have seen groups of 50 of them at a time. I have noticed that they love the cedar trees that are here. I have been trying to get a pictures with the digital camera but ever time I see them I don't have my camera with me and when I do have the camera no blue birds!!

We saw quite a few Bluebirds this spring and summer. Most have moved on with Golden Finches & Cardinals taking their places.

The Bluebirds did have to fight off the yellow jackets and wasps this year too.

Post Script to last comment:

I couldn't leave my truck outside or the male Bluebirds would fight with their image on the truck's side mirrors and crap would be everywhere.