The Bird House Hop
Don't let your backyard birds do the bird house hop. Birds live in all kinds of different places and some of them will stick around your house if conditions are right. You can build bird houses from simple one room structures to elaborate apartment buildings! The kind of house you build depends on what type of bird you want to live there.
Birdscaping Your Yard
I can never stress variety enough. There are so many different birds around and they all require different surroundings so if you want birds to stay at your house you must cater to as many different kinds of birds as possible.
Very often plants provide food for bird as well as shelter and nesting places. Since food becomes scarce in the winter planting trees and shrubs that provide fruits or berries late into winter can go a long way towards attracting birds to your house. Some of the better known plants that accomplish this are holly, bush honeysuckle, bayberry, crabapple, mountain ash, Virginia creeper and hawthorn.
Many plants provide seeds. Most people don't want to provide a weed patch for the birds but many garden flowers make edible seeds that the birds will like. Amaranth, aster, bachelor's button, columbine, forget-me-not, poppy, phlox and sunflowers all provide edible seeds. There are also trees that attract seed eating birds. These include ash, birch, alder, maple, elm, and sycamore trees.
A Hole in One
One thing every bird house needs is an entrance. Here are some hole dimensions and some of the birds that prefer that size.
1 1/8 inches: chickadee
1 1/4 inches: titmouse, nuthatch, house wren, downy woodpecker and Bewick's wren
1 1/2 inches: bluebird, Carolina wren, hairy woodpecker and tree swallow, and violet-green swallow
2 inches: gold fronted woodpecker, red-headed woodpecker, great crested flycatcher and starling, house finch
2 1/2 inches: flicker, saw-whet owl and purple martin
3 inches: screech owl, and sparrow hawk
4 inches: wood duck
5 inches: barn
owl
Birds that like nesting shelves: barn swallow, robin, phoebe, and song sparrow
Another factor to take into consideration is the palcement of your bird house. In the wild birds choose their nesting places according to many criteria. Here is a list of heights from the ground a bird house needs to be to attract different kinds of birds.
6 to 10 feet- Bewick's wren, Carolina wren, house wren, chickadee, titmouse and bluebird
12 to 20 feet- nuthatch, golden-fronted woodpecker, red headed woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, violet-green swallow, starling and barn owl
10 to 30 feet- screech owl, sparrow hawk, flicker, wood duck
Bird
House Hints and Tips
Be careful if you put a metal roof on your bird house. A metal roof can heat up the inside of a bird house very quickly.
Allow a new bird house time to weather over the winter and it'll be more acceptable to the birds.
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