Bird Houses, what birds do you want in your garden?

[applestar]

Yesterday when I went outside, I scraped out two of the birdhouses in the garden.

It seemed like the birds that normally move into these houses in early spring did not, and the House Wrens were not as enthusiastically promoting or inspecting them pending summer occupancy.

I had not had the opportunity to clean them out I think for the last two years (I think they moved in before I could get the chance last year)

…Both of the houses were filled from the bottom to the top — bottom 2 inches of moss and compost and with sticks all the way up to the opening and upper vents.

No self respecting lady wren was going to approve this kind of nonsense

I cleaned them out completely. They can refill from the scraped out sticks and moss or go find fresh material.

I have one other birdhouse that has long since been chewed up by squirrels, and one other one that fell down last year, and one new one that need to be put up as well. Busy, busy.

[Vanisle_BC]

We have an outbreak of avian flu. In some places poultry are dying suddenly in large numbers, and farmers are having to pre-emptively slaughter their birds. Householders are being asked to sterilize all backyard feeders and nesting boxes.

[Gary350]

I spent 4 hours pressure washing the patio. Wife is good to find things on sale & discontinued at very low prices she bought 5 new red pillows & a 9 foot red umbrella for the patio. Bird feeder fell apart so I built a copy of it with pressure treated wood. Today is the first day we were able to set on patio at 6 am and listen to the birds without wearing our winter blizzard jacket & winter hat. It is amazing how many birds are singing, some I recognize and some I don't. I think when birds have eggs in the nest they celebrate by singing their lungs out. LOL.

[digitS']

I hope it isn't the bird flu but there are very few birds that have migrated in, it seems to me.

June temperatures were brutally hot last year with 7 days over 90°f and 4 more, over 100°f. I suspect that caused more than a few fledgling deaths. There were probably not many young birds from the 2021 season.

The House Sparrows and Starlings seem to have maintained their populations well. Robins are very few. The House Finches are here and we have not often seen a Killdeer. The Cliff Swallows have been here for weeks but are few. A pair of Barn Swallows flew over the garden the last time we were out. The Pine Siskins are not around but they likely stay in the evergreen forests until there are seeds to eat in the nearby fallow fields.

Steve

[Gary350]

Setting on the patio we hear a symphony of bird songs every morning. Every day we hear more and more birds as they arrive from where every they were all winter. It sounds like 100s of birds, it is hard to zero in on 1 bird to learn what song it sings. 7 pm last night nature TV show was about birds that got me interested in searching for bird YouTube videos. It is interesting the Lyrebird can sing the song of any bird it hears. What the videos.

Robins built a nest on top of our security light only 18 ft from where we set, we have a good view of 3 babies as they get older. A few days ago babies were gone. Google search for bird houses is not reliable often no matter what bird you search for the same bird house claims to be for that bird, even birds that do not nest in houses. I was getting some ok information at Audubon Society but now they want, name, address, phone, email, credit card number. I have learned birds do not like perches this makes it easy for larger birds to attack the nest. Birds like nesting boxes better than houses. Cardinals = Red birds like to nest in every green trees. Black capped chickadees like a bird house 4" square or round & 6" front to back with an over size entrance hole. Blue Birds and Wrens like the same size shape nest box but Blue Birds want a very warm house painted a dark color located in full sun so it warms up in full sun, no air vents to allow warm air to escape. Wrens like a White color bird house in a shade green with air vents to keep the nesting box from getting hot in the sun. Blue birds arrived last week of Feb, Wrens arrive May 20 every year. I built 9 blue bird nesting boxes and put them is 9 different locations, birds like the house on a 1/2" EMT electrical conduit standing straight up 25 ft from anything in the yard, in full sun, 6' above the garden.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEXX6Oyuj4k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA0tP-p7m40

[applestar]

I fell behind with maintenance of the birdhouses and only have two fully functional houses up in the garden this year, and one of them has become unpopular and is currently untenanted.

Both were originally commercial bluebird houses, one is fitted with entrance restrictor to keep out house sparrows.

They are usually occupied by a family of Carolina Wrens or Chickadees very early in spring, then taken over by the House Wrens once the those babies fledge and the House Wrens migrate up from the south.

The one house that is not occupied may have been targeted by the garter snake …or it’s presence may have spooked the birds — I found the shed snake skin nearby and I know the snake(s) have frequently stayed in the same warm corner nook under the fig tree. It’s an active windowsill watch spot for our kitty.

But this spring, there seems to be Song Sparrow nests in the shrubbery on both sides of the house. The babies are very noisy right now, but I can’t see the nest.

Song Sparrows are larger sparrows with dark brown back and irregular patterned stripes/streaks on the chest, marked with a prominent spot in the middle. They usually hang out with White-throated Sparrows during the winter while they are visiting form the north, but the Song Sparrows are here year-round.

Their call is melodious but LOUD. I sometimes see them on the house peak above the bedroom window.

Robins are nesting in the trees, and at least one family of Cardinals are somewhere nearby.

…One birdhouse with a piece of the roof missing needs to be taken down and fixed,
…and another one had been gnawed by a squirrel (I think?) and the enlarged doorhole may not be repairable, although I might be able to just screw on a patch.
…yet another has developed a loose floor platform that tilts/rotates on two screws that are supposed to be securing it — a family of birds (House Sparrows) had been unceremoniously dumped out one year — although that might have been a raid by a homeless cat who had loosened/broken it to begin with.

The birdhouses that need to be repaired are clustered on the roof of a low patio storage, waiting. I really have to take care of those.

I can see that those silly House Wren males had stuffed these broken homes with sticks, but unsurprisingly, they didn’t meet with female wrens’ approval.

One of them in the group is actually anew hose that didn’t get hung up — but that one didn’t attract a tenant either. Too close to the back door perhaps?

[hendi_alex]

That is an easy one. Any bird that wants to live here. I have created a very bird friendly yard with non mowed wildflower/grass spaces, intermediate evergreen fruiting shrubs, and large canopy trees. We leave dead trees standing, for wood peckers and other animals that live in them or feed on the array of critters. We create brush piles from cleared trees, limbs, fallen debris. There is a mix of hardwood, pines, and other evergreens. As a result we have an enormously diversified bird population. There are at least half a dozen wood pecker species alone. We have chimney swifts, tanagers, indigo buntings, blue birds, cardinals, phoebes, purple martins, hawks, kites, owls, crows, mockingbirds, chickadees, fly catchers, wrens, sparrows, ………….. too many to name. We use no feeders, opting for habitat instead. We do have an assortment of about a dozen homemade bird houses and a nesting shelf. So far this year we have had two successful clutches of blue birds, a clutch of chickadees, and one clutch of wrens. The wren nested in a pot on our front porch. No feral cats which are an abomination for birds.