A month ago I received cuttings which look exactly like the plant the original poster, Lennie, posted about in this thread two years ago. They were given to me as Crassula arborescens from a botanic gardens. I am now convinced that there are several jade plants going under the name of Crassula 'Bluebird', but I don't know how to sort the confusion. You can see one of mine above, in this thread. Another was the one I posted for Nancy standing beside my Crassula arborescens 'Silver Dollar Jade' a week or so ago, and is the one shown here now. The one I showed on the Cacti Gallery in my 'Cabbage' thread was another. Has anyone else got 'Bluebird' jades to show to help sort this out? Opinions would be valued too.

Hey, I've got a Bluebird pair nesting in my backyard this year, and they aren't following the "rules" either. One - My back yard could be described at best as an "open woodland" with numerous large canopy trees, plenty of evergreens, shrubbery, and tangled thickets, intermixed with some lawn, gardens, and a couple overgrown meadow/weedy areas. A very mixed habitat. While numerous Bluebirds visit daily during the winter to eat the home-made peanut butter suet, they usually disperse by Spring and I never in a million years expected any to nest here. On the plus side, the next door neighbor has a large lawn he mows and there is a meadow across the street, so they probably hunt there, but I often observe them perching and hunting in my yard too. Two - Even though I rushed to put up a traditional Bluebird nestbox mounted on a pole w/baffle, the Bluebirds have chosen to nest in NATURAL CAVITIES in the dead pine snags in my back yard. They have had 2 broods and chose 2 different natural cavities for each brood, while ignoring the nest box. One cavity was about 20 feet up, one about 10 feet up. Guess they didn't read about safety rules, proper hole size, and predator guards. :) I am very excited because their 2nd brood fledged about a week ago, they disappeared for awhile, and today Mr. and Mrs. Blue showed up to repeatedly retrieve some suet nuggets and fly off to the large Pin Oak in the front yard where I'm guessing the fledglings were hanging out! (Also heard some cries coming from the tree.) Momma Blue peeking out from her first nesting cavity -

Ponder no more! TRES...tree swallows, HOWR...house wren...CAWR...Carolina Wren..just to name a few. I live in the deep south, so they are year around residents, I have no idea about other parts of the country. Nestboxes should always be cleaned after babies fledge..in fact, I clean mine the very next day by hosing it out, scrubing the inside, then rinsing well. I leave the door open for a day to dry thoroughly. Some birds, including the blues will sometimes roost in boxes during the winter when temps are very cold. Check out Sialis.org for anything you want to know about the blues! It's a must read for anyone wanting to host them! Donna

Did a count later today and there are 4 babies. Mom did not eat the meal worms I put out today. Weather has gone to not being so hot and so I guess she is happy with the bugs that she can get on her own. She and Dad were busy at the nest site and I saw several other blues in the area (not sure if they are their young but they seems to tolerate them being around, so I am guessing that they are.)