Eastern bluebird
Sialia sialis
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.