Making Birdhouses
Avian artists Lilly, Roland, and Presley pose for a photo before launching into creating their birdhouse designs.
There are two main purposes for birdhouses. The first is to create a safe space for our bird friends to nest. The second is purely artistic to decorate our homes with reminders of our love for these creatures or to give as gifts. There are no rules for the decorative kind of birdhouses because they are no danger to birds when they have no access to them. But if you are making a home for a bird or plan to display a decorative bird house outside, there are more things you have to assure for the safety of birds.
THE DECORATIVE BIRDHOUSE
Each birder unwrapped one of the presents from their gift bag to find a pre-made gazebo-style wooden birdhouse (Amazon $4.77). You can also buy Birdhouse Kits if you want to make your own, or start from scratch. Because our family is nothing if not art project lovers, we opted to go with the more creative endeavor and make our birdhouse decorative. All we needed were paints, pencils, brushes, permanent markers, and our imagination.
THE FUNCTIONAL BIRDHOUSE
There is a very helpful book that can guide you in your birdhouse building if you want to start from scratch. It is called Audubon Birdhouse Book. It “explains how to build and place functional DIY bird homes that are safe and appropriate for more than 20 classic North American species, from wrens to raptors.
Each of the easy-to-build boxes and shelves within is accompanied by cut lists, specially created line diagrams, and step-by-step photography, making the projects accessible to those with even the most rudimentary woodworking skills.
In addition, this practical and beautifully presented guide is packed with color photography and information about the bird species covered: Wrens, Warblers, Bluebirds, Flycatchers, Swallows, Titmice, Owls, Flickers, Kestrels, Chickadees, Ducks, Mergansers, Swallows, Doves, Swallows, Robins, Finches, Phoebes, Loons, Swifts, Herons, and Ospreys.
MAKING THE RIGHT HOUSE FOR THE RIGHT BIRD
Each bird favors a certain size birdhouse to match their bodies and habits. If you want to attract a certain type of bird to your house, you should tailor your birdhouse to their preferences for floor size, height, hole diameter, height to hole. Then you will need to mount it at the correct height from the ground and in the right habitat. It’s a lot to think about, but, luckily, generous birders before us have researched this and shared their knowledge. Here is a great little chart providing you all that information for many common birds. It is from the website of the Massachusetts chapter of the Audubon Society.
ARTIST CHECK-IN TIME
So back to the project. How’s it coming along. It looks like Lilly has imagined what she wants her decorative birdhouse to look like. She has sketched her design on the house using pencil. She’s also picked her color palette. And now she is starting to paint.
Ta Da! Beautiful Birdhouses!
Presley and Lilly got their decorative birdhouses completed. Roland has some more complex plans for his and took it home to work on there, so we’ll have to wait to see how his turns out. Aren’t these lovely?