Eastern bluebird
Sialia sialis
Bird
Small open-country thrush whose diet is roughly two-thirds insects and other invertebrates - grasshoppers, crickets, katydids, beetles, and spiders taken from short or sparse ground cover - with the remainder made up of wild fruits and berries, especially in fall and winter. Fruit shrubs such as serviceberry, chokecherry, and elderberry, along with sumac, dogwood, and hackberry, carry the bird through the cold months when insects are scarce. A secondary cavity nester, it relies on old woodpecker holes, natural tree cavities, and artificial nest boxes; its mid-20th-century decline reversed largely through volunteer nest-box trails.
Conservation
IUCN Red List: Least Concern, with a long-term increasing population trend (greater than 1.5% annual increase across most of its range from 1966 to 2015). Not a US-listed species. Earlier-20th-century declines from habitat loss and pesticides were reversed by widespread nest-box programs, making it a textbook cavity-nester recovery case rather than a current conservation concern.
Plan for this species
Location-fit plant set for Chicago, IL: host and specialist plants first, then nectar, fruit, seed, foliage, and shelter plants that still fit the current and mid-century climate read.
0 essential relationships / 6 supporting plants
Host/specialist links: 0
Forage/pollination links: 6
Shelter links: 0
Relationship roles: 1
American elderberry
Supporting / Fruit plants
Black cherry
Supporting / Fruit plants
Blue elderberry
Supporting / Fruit plants
Canadian serviceberry
Supporting / Fruit plants
Chokecherry
Supporting / Fruit plants
Common hackberry
Supporting / Fruit plants
Plants in the catalog
Fruit plants · 18
Bluebirds wintering at the northern edge of their range lean heavily on juniper. It is one of the standard reasons a juniper is left standing in a field margin rather than cleared.
Bluebirds switch to fruit through winter and juniper cones are a staple of that diet across the northern range. A low mat gives them food but no nest site, so pair it with structure rather than expecting it to do both.
The Wildflower Center names the eastern bluebird specifically among the birds that eat this fruit. Gray dogwood drupes are a high-fat late-summer and autumn crop rather than a persistent winter one, which puts them exactly where a bird preparing to migrate or to settle for the winter needs them.
Bluebirds switch from insects to fruit as the season turns, and a late-summer high-fat drupe on an open, tiered crown with abundant perching branches is close to ideal for them. The horizontal branching matters here in a way it does not for a dense thicket shrub: bluebirds hunt and feed from exposed perches, and this plant is mostly exposed perches.
Bluebirds take small soft drupes heavily in late summer and autumn and are a documented consumer of related native viburnums and dogwoods. Recorded as plausible on the same footing as the waxwing: right fruit size, right season, no species-level statement in the sources cited here.
Bluebirds switch from insects to fruit as the season turns, and a dogwood thicket at a field edge or a stream margin is exactly the structure they hunt from. Pair it with the open ground bluebirds need, because a dogwood stand that has closed over into a solid block gives fruit but takes away the perch-and-drop hunting the birds came for.
Eastern bluebirds are named among the fruit-eaters on this species. Berry crops matter most to bluebirds in the cold months when insects are unavailable, which is precisely when yaupon still holds fruit.
Range
Breeds and resides east of the Rocky Mountains from southern Canada south to the Gulf states, with separate populations from southeastern Arizona south to Nicaragua; northern birds migrate while southern populations are largely resident.
Sources & citations
Cite this page
Use this citation for the Plotwright wildlife record. Use the source cards below to explore the references that informed its taxonomy, range, conservation, host plants, foraging, and habitat.
Plotwright. (n.d.). Eastern bluebird (Sialia sialis). Retrieved 2026, August 20, from https://plotwright.com/wildlife/eastern-bluebird
Sources used for this record
This record is compiled from the sources below.
Cornell Lab: Eastern Bluebird
Bird-guide reference for identity, range, low-concern status, insect and fruit diet, secondary-cavity nesting, and nest-box garden support.
GBIF: Sialia sialis
GBIF backbone record confirming the accepted species name and aggregating occurrence records that map its eastern North American distribution.
iNaturalist: Eastern Bluebird
iNaturalist taxon page corroborating the accepted name and mapping verified community observations across its range.
Eastern bluebird - Wikipedia
Encyclopedia overview covering identification, range, and the nest-box recovery and breeding life-cycle history.