Species Spotlight

Species Spotlight: Eastern Bluebird

August 17, 2026 by Kai Pflug No Comments

Wikipedia has its own page on the Bluebird of Happiness, starting with the sentence “The symbol of a bluebird as the harbinger of happiness is found in many cultures and may date back thousands of years”.

It also has a separate page for the 1934 Jan Peerce song “Bluebird of Happiness”.

Apparently, the association of the bluebird with happiness is based on The Blue Bird, a stage play by Maurice Maeterlinck, first performed in 1908, which follows two children on a search for happiness.

My current favorite artist, Ryan Davis, has a song titled “Bluebirds Revisited” – not one of his best, but still with great lines such as “I’ve been having not-so-bad-a’ nightmares
But howling bloody murder in my daydreams”.

It is presumably the sequel to “Bluebirds in a fight” – both songs can be found here.

Another reference to bluebirds – and even the bluebird of happiness – comes from a Gary Larson cartoon (shown here). With the text “The Bluebird of Happiness long absent from his life, Ned is visited by the Chicken of Depression.”

While I’d like to get to the actual bird now, the HBW makes this a bit difficult. Looking up the entry for the Eastern Bluebird, the first thing one reads is the rather unavian sentence “The Cornell Lab of Ornithology dedicates this account in honor of Inge Reichenbach, member of the Lab of Ornithology’s Administrative Board.” WTF.

Even the first “real” sentence of the species profile is somewhat weird in that it combines three very different aspects and writing styles in one awkward sentence: “Eastern Bluebirds have gorgeous plumage, nest in open, often disturbed, human-modified habitats, and, as secondary cavity nesters, readily take to artificial nesting cavities.”

See, it is possible to write a whole post about this bird without ever providing any useful information on the species.

Written by Kai Pflug
Kai has lived in Shanghai for 22 years. He only started birding after moving to China, so he is far more familiar with Chinese birds than the ones back in his native Germany. As a birder, he considers himself strictly average and tries to make up for it with photography, which he shares on a separate website. Alas, most of the photos are pretty average as well. He hopes that few clients of his consulting firm—focused on China’s chemical industry—ever find this blog, as it might raise questions about his professional priorities. Much of his time is spent either editing posts for 10,000 Birds or cleaning the litter boxes of his numerous indoor cats. He occasionally considers writing a piece comparing the two activities.