Construction Bird houses, or nest boxes, can be fancy or simple. This article discusses simple designs. materials need not be expensive. We use leftovers: ends of pine boards, plywood pieces, old barn boards, rough sawn lumber, and other scraps. Slabwood leftovers from a lumber mill will do nicely. One can even consider a section of hollow log found in the firewood pile. The diagram in this article offers one design. Fancier offerings exist for waterfowl, bluebirds, owls and purple martins. Interior sizes vary depending on the bird species as shown in the chart. Keep the following construction details in mind:
Attaching the box Nest boxes can be attached to trees, poles, posts or to the side of a house. You can do this by:
Location Read about the birds you want to attract. The chart will provide information so you can place the nest box at a good height on existing trees or installed poles. In some cases nesting territories of a species are given, so you can estimate the number of boxes to erect in a given area. Place boxes in quiet areas where human traffic is at a minimum. Position the entrance hole so it receives some sun, but not so much that the residents overheat! If possible turn it away from the usual direction of rain and strong winds. Clothesline poles can be suitable if the box is located away from or above flapping clothes. Tree swallows prefer open areas within sight of water; nest boxes can be placed as close as 10 feet apart. Chickadees like to nest near bushes or shrubs. Purple martin colonies will probably not be used unless these birds already frequent the area. Obtain more construction information before you build a "condo" for them. Wrens need two boxes, one for the nest, another to store nesting material. Flickers adopt a nest box more readily if it is placed above surrounding foliage. Wood ducks, goldeneyes, hooded and common mergansers prefer a nest box near, or standing in, water. Poles for nest boxes in water are easier to erect by chopping through ice during the winter. Protection Starlings and house sparrows are imports and early nesters that often take over nest boxes intended for native birds. If you like them, keep them! If they become a problem, cover the entrance holes of the boxes until your desired species show up in the spring. Red and flying squirrels will think you put up the boxes for them. Perhaps you did. Alternatively, put up more boxes on solitary trees that cannot be reached by jumping or gliding from another tree. Place a guard around the trunk of the tree some distance up so jumping from the ground is impossible. The guard can be an inverted cone of metal or plastic, or a 0.6 m (two-foot) strip of metal or plastic wrapped around the tree. Raccoons may require a one metre (three-foot) strip, or a nest box of their own. These opportunists can be a problem with waterfowl nesting boxes. An oval rather than round entrance hole, and a box with proper depth may curtail their egg-eating tendencies. Checking your Box The early stages of nesting, when eggs are being incubated, are critical times when the box should not be checked. Later inspections should be done quickly, when the adults are away feeding. Dead nestlings should be removed. They attract extra insects that make life tough for the nestlings that remain. Old nest materials, wood chips, and shavings should be cleaned out after the young leave the nest. this keeps down parasites that "welcome"the next group of nestlings. Some species nest more than once a year, so a close watch must be kept for the first batch of new fliers. Extra boxes put up close-by are an alternative, and may attract double-nesters out of the first nest. Some nest box users can be quite secretive. The flickers at the back of the orchard fooled us until the young began clamouring to be fed at dawn. One of our swallow boxes last year hosted a colony of wild bees. There was no pollination problem in our garden! For more details on barred owl, wood duck, bluebird, and purple martin houses write to the Department of Natural Resources at P.O. Box 68, Truro, NS, B2N 5B8. Bats are our only defence against night-time biting insects, which include hordes of mosquitoes. In the next issue we'll explain how to build a bat-room.
Date Of Post: November 25 / 1998 |
