Birdhouses

[hyzer]

I started my hobby about 14 years ago. I was getting divorced and I needed to clean out a basement and a garage. I started with the following rules:

1. use only found or donated materials (since modified to allow thrift store purchases under $4)
2. make no measured plans, just build
3. don't worry about being square, the birds won't care
4. make them weatherproof and use screws so that they can be periodically cleaned out
5. give them away
6. no patterns, each is its own thing
7. no dowels can be used for the perch

Here are some favorites:

World Line, 2021
Dance, 2011
Agnes, 2022

 

[thebeave]

That's pretty cool. I've made a few over the years, starting in Cub Scouts. Most were the more conventional "house looking" style, but I did make one once from a small hollow log. Cut the log to length, added a board on top and bottom (with screws!) , and a hole in the middle. I also put a small stick or dowel as a perch under the hole, but someone said that birds don't really like those, so I took it off. Not sure if that is true or not, though. I see you don't put those on. Maybe you know?

I got real motivated about 25 years ago and made a bunch of birdhouses (with hand tools) out of old redwood fence boards and gave them away as Christmas presents to various cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. One cousin still has hers, and she gives me yearly updates and pictures on the newest avian residents. Her little kids got a big kick out of it.

 

[hyzer]

Thanks. Using a hollow log is what got me started - it is out in the woods of West Virginia at my friend's cabin. It's great that you get reports about your cousin's residents - birdhouses are the gift that keeps giving year after year.

Regarding perches, there are many sources that state that perches allow larger predator birds to access the house. I haven't seen that as an issue. The sample ones that I posted all have a form of wire that can be a perch, however, on my ones with a more conventional perch (roofing nail, towel hook, or anything besides a dowel) the parents often sit and feed their nestlings from the perch. It is so neat to see the little ones poking their beaks out the hole to be fed.

House sparrows raised chicks in the one the left (Neverland, 2022), and house wrens (Frisbee, 2023) in the other.