Resources for Building and Hanging Bird Boxes
Written by Andy McCormick
Andy McCormick, Volunteer and Former Board President of Eastside Audubon
Installing a bird nest box on your property is a wonderful way to provide support for birds and to attract birds to your yard. A nest box, also commonly called a bird house, is ideal for cavity nesting birds such as woodpeckers, chickadees, and bluebirds. Other birds such as robins, wrens, and juncos will prefer a platform for a cup nest. Birds vary in their requirements for a nest box and details about these preferences must be considered before deciding to build or buy a nest box. Birds have preferences for the overall size of the box, the diameter of the entry and exit hole, the height from the ground, and the compass direction for the box to face are all in play. These details are important for the birds, and we are fortunate that the following four excellent resources provide information specifically for the birds we want to attract.
BIRD BOXES 101 AT MASS AUDUBON
The website for Mass Audubon (Massachusetts) provides excellent information on building and maintaining bird houses. The Birdhouse and Nesting Chart lists the appropriate size of the inner floor, hole diameter, mounting height, and appropriate habitat for 15 cavity nesting birds. Mass Audubon designed the list for Eastern birds, but many of the species also live in the west, and the information is transferrable to some western bird species not listed. The website is unique in that it also includes information on multispecies birdhouses and small platforms for open nesters such as robins and swallows.
NEST WATCH AT CORNELL LAB OF ORNITHOLOGY
The Nest Watch program at Cornell Lab, the builder of the eBird database and the Birds of the World website, provides information both on building nest boxes and also the opportunity to monitor the nest and report information to Cornell Lab. The site includes an informative section called All about Birdhouses, with a handy search feature for birdhouse construction tips, birds in your location and habitat, and installation of a nest box camera. Once you join Nest Watch you can submit your observations to Cornell Lab and contribute to the ongoing research into birds, the results of which are presented on the website’s blog. The site also includes a very nice nest and egg identification aid. The graphics on the site are attractive and engaging.
BOOKS
Russell Link’s 1999 Landscaping for Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest (1999, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife) has been a staple for wildlife habitat design and maintenance for both homeowners and professionals. The book is still available online if it is not in your favorite bookstore. Chapters on bird nest boxes, bird feeders, and bat boxes are very detailed and include recommended dimensions for nest boxes for varied species of birds. A valuable appendix offers detailed instructions on construction of nest boxes for songbirds, woodpeckers, kestrels, Wood Ducks, and screech-owls.
All about Attracting Birds (2001, Ortho Books) is the latest update of Michael McKinley’s original 1983 publication of How to Attract Birds. This volume is sold in garden shops and feed stores and is also available online. It provides solid information on plants and foods which will attract birds to your yard. The descriptive chapter on nest boxes is a good overview, but unfortunately, it does not include the construction details available in the other resources mentioned above. The Gallery of Birds is helpful and includes range maps for each species to help identify birds for your location. However, the scale of the maps is too large for pinpoint accuracy. I advise you to have a local field guide to birds nearby to complement all of these resources.