Blue Bird Nesting box plans

[hendi_alex]

I did a project on the Eastern Bluebird back in college. At that time ran across nesting box plans from Lawrence Zeleny. Have had boxes of that design ever since. Blue birds have been returning to our yard and re-using boxes since the early 1980's. In a typical summer the birds will raise two or three broods. Some years a single male will tend two or three females which nest in our several boxes that are within a few hundred feet of one another.

I made one major adjustment to the Zeleny design. The old nests must be cleaned out after nesting, so it makes sense to construct the box for easy access to the inside. I solved the problem by placing two screws at the top left and right of the box face and placing a third screw on the bottom of the face. By backing out the bottom screw, the face will then swing up to allow for easy clean out. The front can also be opened to allow for observation of the young developing birds. We have two sets of young so far this spring, a clutch of 5 in one house and three in the other. Black capped chickadees used a third box, but the young have already left the nest.

Here is a link to both the original and the modified nest box from Zeleny. Zeleny was the one who started the blue bird movement back in the 1960's and 1970's.

https://audubon-omaha.org/bbbox/nestbox/nabs.htm#Zeleny

In looking at these plans, I see that I've modified the box construction quite a bit, but have kept the dimensions the same. Actually my front panel is inset rather than over lapping the sides. So my works just like the side panel in drawing two from the link.


By the way, I've also modified this box design to accommodate many birds. I just construct the box with similar panels, but modify their size the give the correct nesting box dimensions. Also place the proper sized hole for the particular species. The link below gives a nice table which provides the nest box dimensions for various birds.

https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmed ... -246-W.pdf

Re-posted under this thread, but with editing and additional content, so more readers might see the nesting box plans.

[hendi_alex]

For the current season, one group of five blue birds has left the nest and a family of four chickadees has also flown away.

These three blue birds just hatched early last week I think. They are in our oldest house which is at least thirty years old. Had to replace the top a couple of years ago. I mount all bird boxes on PVC about 5 feet above the ground, to discourage our two cats from bothering the birds.





This is a newer house, probably ten years old. Notice that the design has changed over the years. Am about ready to build a few more houses and will likely adjust the design again. Almost certainly will choose a quick release for unlatching to swing the front up for observation and for clean out.

[bnoles]

WOW! Thanks for the great post. I was just thinking the other day that I need to make a few new boxes to replace my old ones. Your post has inspired me to get out there and do just that.