Let's Build a Birdhouse! (Post 2 of 2)
Back on Jan. 28th (it was 10 degrees outside) we floated a "rough design" for a
modest birdhouse for the Spring. It was to be nothing special - just large enough for a bluebird or smaller. Well, time has passed and the birdhouse has "taken wing"! Let's
take a look at the build process, what we finally got, and see if the birds like it...
To get started, the wife and I had to deal with frozen ground and scrap lumber. Ya' takes what ya' gets. The photo below shows some surplus wood and a printout of the January 28th post.
Given those materials, we got started. We stayed with the plans for the most part, and pieced together a small house with a 4" X 4" inside floor plan. The hope was to house a titmouse, nuthatch, or chickadee family. The picture below shows the work coming together.
Because the domicile was being made from scrap, the roof was spliced together using waterproof glue.
To safeguard the birds, a left-over piece of aluminum diamond plate was fashioned into a squirrel guard.
The final creation is shown below, complete with a pressure treated 4 X 4.
We used the technique for mounting the birdhouse in that old post, "Hanging/Mounting Your New Feeder, (Part 2)". And voila!
So that's the easy part... The tough part is convincing birds to actually live in the thing... Often, it will take a season or more for the human "scent" to wear off before a bird will set foot in a house. This time, we got lucky. Within just a couple of hours we had prospective tenants!
See you by the feeders and the house!
CapeCodAlan
To get started, the wife and I had to deal with frozen ground and scrap lumber. Ya' takes what ya' gets. The photo below shows some surplus wood and a printout of the January 28th post.
Given those materials, we got started. We stayed with the plans for the most part, and pieced together a small house with a 4" X 4" inside floor plan. The hope was to house a titmouse, nuthatch, or chickadee family. The picture below shows the work coming together.
Because the domicile was being made from scrap, the roof was spliced together using waterproof glue.
To safeguard the birds, a left-over piece of aluminum diamond plate was fashioned into a squirrel guard.
The final creation is shown below, complete with a pressure treated 4 X 4.
We used the technique for mounting the birdhouse in that old post, "Hanging/Mounting Your New Feeder, (Part 2)". And voila!
So that's the easy part... The tough part is convincing birds to actually live in the thing... Often, it will take a season or more for the human "scent" to wear off before a bird will set foot in a house. This time, we got lucky. Within just a couple of hours we had prospective tenants!
See you by the feeders and the house!
CapeCodAlan
Comments
I find it interesting, the use of a piece of scrap aluminum as a squirrel guard. The one question I have tough is, will it cause the birdhouse to heat up inside making it to hot for some nesting bird?
Posted by: Birdhouse kit - Rusty | August 7, 2010 12:57 PM
Hi Rusty,
Thanks for the comment!
As for the squirrel guard and heat... I worried about that too. Several observations belayed that concern. First, the small birds love the house, though the orientation and cleanliness are crucial. But the second bit of evidence stems from an experience from years ago. A local business had a "sign fire". (The sign was one of those metal boxes on a stout pole with painted Plexiglas sides and fluorescent strips inside.) The heat in there must have been tremendous. Yet when the firemen pulled the thing apart they found that birds had found a way in and had made a nest.
I guess if you have enough ventilation holes and the right location birds will tolerate a lot...
Thanks again for your readership,
CCA
Posted by: CapeCodAlan
|
August 8, 2010 2:12 AM