Any walk along the trails of Cibolo Nature Center provides a unique opportunity to explore the natural world, including the chance to see one of the center’s iconic birds, the eastern bluebird. Depicted in Disney movies and sung about as the bluebird of happiness, this now common songbird was once a rare bird in many parts of its range.
Less than 100 years ago the eastern bluebird population was in free-fall. Changing land use, the introduction of toxic chemicals and habitat loss created the perfect storm, sending populations of bluebirds and other species plummeting.
Just when the future was dimming for bluebirds, a few pioneering scientists and conservationists began erecting boxes in which bluebirds and other secondary-cavity nesting birds could raise their young — and as was famously quoted in the movie Field of Dreams, the adage of “build it and they will come” came to pass.
