How Many Eggs Does a Bluebird Lay?

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Andy Wood. I'm Education Director for Audubon North Carolina, and I'm here to talk to you about "how many eggs does a bluebird lay?" Bluebirds are small members of the thrush family; they're related to robins, and as their name implies, they're a beautiful blue color for the most part. We have three different kinds: the Eastern bluebird, Western bluebird and Mountain bluebird. And all three of them will typically lay, in a given nesting season, four to six powder-blue eggs in a cavity like a rotten tree hole, or a nest box that the young, that the adult birds have created a nice grass and pine straw nest inside. The eggs typically take 12-14 days to hatch, and since bluebirds live typically 3-5 years, and they may produce upwards of two broods a year, that's about ten eggs a year, over three to five years, so in a bluebird's life, it may produce 30-50 offspring. Each year is going to be different, however, because the bluebird will lay more eggs if there's plenty of food and fewer eggs if there's not a lot of food, so if it's been a particularly harsh winter and there's not a lot of grasshoppers and caterpillars around, the female won't produce so many eggs, in other words not so many hungry mouths to feed, and that's how many eggs a bluebird lays."