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