Birdhouse

Can anyone give me a general good birdhouse plan? I am looking for small to med sized birds... I know I am going to put in a village of them when only a few will be lived in. I would love to build a simple birdhouse that I can string together in a nice row for real use and looks?

Mitch

I've missed you, hope all has been well with you.

The only bird houses we have made recently have been for Blue Birds. I could e-mail those blue prints if you think it would work for you but the design is for mounting on a post. We did construct a few wood duck and screech owl nest boxes but that was about 10 years ago. I have those plans somewhere if you are interested. All were really easy to construct.

Try here and type birdhouse blueprints into their search engine and see what you come up with-
http://www.audubon.org/chapter/tx/tx/

I am doing ok... not on here right now full time but I still get into all but 2 of the forums I loved for free sooo I am a bad and have not paid up yet...

I would love to see the plans - the plans for the bluebird house I would love to see. The same plans could be used just on a little bigger or smaller scale for other birds right? I dont have Owls here - yet, I hope one day.

Specific boxes are made for specific species. Most boxes are attractive to several species, but they all prefer a certain sized box or opening. I have a Wood Duck nest box with a Screech Owl in it right now. The Hooded Mergansers are not happy about this because they would like to move in before the Wood Ducks show up. I believe that the Screech Owl has young, so the Wood Ducks may get to move in after the little Screech Owls fledge.

Almost every type of box would be of interest to non-native birds. The European Starling and English House Sparrow will move into any box that they can get into and these two species kill our native birds. If you are not willing to prevent these two species from reproducing PLEASE DO NOT put up any type of housing!!!! You sign a death order for our native birds by allowing non-native birds to reproduce.

If you are willing to prevent non-native birds to reproduce I will give you plans for cavity nesting birds of your choice. It’s kind of one of the things that I do for fun.

Mark
www.michiganmartins.com

Mike - I keep a careful eye on all not natives - plants, birds and animals. I would love the plans (I need so time to find that site out too, from the first page it looks really good. )

Stelco, that was very helpful for me (see my roosting box thread). Thanks for posting.

Hey Mitch, here's another good site that discusses some of the issues with English House Sparrows and European Starlings-
www.sialis.org

Confession, I am having problems with e-mail so I can't send those plans to you right now. I keep forgetting I have new computer issues. Mark should have some of the very same eastern blue bird blueprints.

Mark, would you please do me a favor and get Mitch's e-mail address and e-mail him what you've got? Either that or I have to go back through d-mails to see who I sent blueprints to who could e-mail them to him since I can't use e-mail.

English House Sparrows and European Starlings - these I know... and believe it or not parakets are all problems here I have been fighting. There was a parrot - all green, not too far from my home wild I saw too.. but did not have issues with it. I have kept 8 pairs of rock doves here year round, they have only left for a few days when I had an issue with Great-tailed Grackles taking over the yard.... (not native to here...)

I have heard that parakeets are becoming an issue in some areas. I've never seen it myself though. Guess it's time for me to poke around a little bit on the Internet.

The Mute Swan from Asia and Europe has become a major issue by me. People are being trained to deal with them. English house sparrows and European starlings have been posing substantial threats in my area so fortunately a few concerned citizens have gotten involved with control methods and I believe Public Health is still attempting to control them. Every little bit helps.

Sorry Mitch, not trying to hijack your thread......what size hole does a Chickadee need? Same as for a Wren?? HOSP can't get into that hole.

Parakeets- they come every spring and stay to fall... i dont know where they go after that but oh my they get to be mean little buggers. They fly in little groups and take anything on... anything. I have seen groups of them take on a local dog that got to close to the feeder they loved to eat at - really something.


Swans and farm birds let wild are issues here in moist areas - all white ducks and the like. People in the city get them for easter and then let them go when the cute factor is gone. To me easy answer - if people are going to get these anyway why not make them be baby woodducks or such?

Hmmm, baby woodducks? I feel for why you typed that. Unfortunately, that would be a no go.

Here is a great link for all of your bird house plans:

http://www.50birds.com/D50BH.htm

Six pages that include the species which will use the boxes, entry hole size and the works. I figured that everyone would benefit from this link that I've had bookmarked for years. The site has been updated and I haven't checked everything out lately. If you go to the home page there is a link to this page:

http://www.duncraft.com/Bird-Houses-C38.aspx

They sell the houses if you don't want to build your own. They have solutions for window strikes, Squirrel problems and a bunch more. As I said, I haven't looked at all of the links, so I'm not sure about the quality of the content.

Mark

A little off the subject, but I recently heard a talk where the speaker mentioned that chimney swifts are declining in numbers dangerously because we all have our chimney's capped so there is no place for them to nest and roost. Before we chopped down all the old growth forests, they used hollow trees, then adapted to urban areas using chimneys, smaller ones for nesting, large industrial sizes for group roosts. Now, there isn't much for them, so they aren't nesting as they should.

Sounds silly, but some in our area are putting fake chimneys on small outbuildings etc to attract them to secure nesting sites. My understanding is that they nest singly--that is, one nest only per chimney, which means if we are kind and open up our chimneys, there is minimal mess and noise for about 3-5 weeks till the babies fly. They do prefer to roost in large numbers, however, so if your chimney becomes a popular nighttime roost, you might have to recap it....Also not sure if having a spark arrestor on the chimney deters them. Anyone experienced on any of this?

One of the members of my group built a Chimney Swift house. He didn't get any takers last year (the first year). How could they get past a spark arrestor? If I had a chimney I'd leave the top open, but close the flue! Coons and others are attracted to open chimneys. They do nest singly, but roost in fall and perhaps early spring in large colonies, which is why they find large chimneys.

I have a newspaper box I no longer use. I was thinking of painting it green (currently red) and placing it among my shrubbery for birds. Good idea or bad?

I know it would not work... just wish they could buy soemthing that would not be an issue latter.... like the rabbits that in 4 to 6 weeks will be everywhere again...

The hole's the same size for a Wren as for a Chickadee. Any reason why a Chickadee wouldn't use the Wren house?

Actually the hole is 1/8 inch smaller for the Chickadee. You may be able to deter Wrens from nesting in it by using the smaller hole. You really don't want Wrens, Terry.

It said Mark, that a House Wren hole was 1 1/4 inch and so was a Black Capped Chickadee. And my spell check decided to quit working........

I have never seen a Wren of any sort around here, not at our old house, not here, not at my parents, but I had them in TN, hence my having a Wren house. I didn't have a problem with them......what's the problem in your eyes? Oh, I think I heard they're mean, but otherwise??

Why would you not want wrens? I have at least one pair of Carolina Wrens in the yard, and I love them!

When I looked at the 50birds link above, it seemed that Carolina Wrens required an entrance hole of 1 1/2 inch in diameter, other wrens 1 1/4 inch, and chickadees 1 3/8 inch (halfway between Carolina and other wrens)...

I'm thinking of making a couple of birdhouses with 1 1/4 inch diameter entrances, and seeing who likes them...

BTW, what diameter entrance will admit an english house sparrow? If I know I have some birdhouses with entrances that are too small for them, then I won't have to keep checking to make sure they're not nesting there.

(edited for typo)

This message was edited Apr 9, 2007 5:34 PM

Quoting from the 50birds.com site, it say this

Every time that I look at the site it says that Chickadee hole diameter should be 1 1/8". Maybe my eyes are bad.

Terry and I are on the northern fringe for Carolina Wrens. I had them for one year and they are fine, except on weekend mornings in mid summer with open windows. They make a loud alarm clock seem like a whisper! We have House Wrens and the males tend to make as many nests as possible to attract a female. Once they begin breeding you can end up with a bunch of House Wrens. One male can do enough damage. They peck holes in the eggs of other birds when they can't build a nest in a box.

A 1 1/4" hole prevents most HOSP from entering. You still want to check your boxes every week or two. It's fun and interesting.

They are quite the little singers, aren't they?

I'll check my bird houses, not to worry... but if I make any for larger birds, I'll be checking them much more frequently, that's all.