Free Bluebird House Plans Audubon Nesting Box Tutorial

Help secure the future for birds at risk from climate change, habitat loss and other threats. Your support will power our science, education, advocacy and on-the-ground conservation efforts. Birdhouses can be crafted in a workshop, or they can be purchased at a local bird supply store or National Wildlife Federation's catalog. The finished project looks great and will undoubtedly make a fine home for a young Bluebird family. Also, with very few materials needed, this DIY Bluebird house won’t fly away with your DIY project budget.

Copper Spade Cedar Bluebird Houses

Below you'll find informationabout bluebirds and free bluebird house plans. Bluebirds start looking for nesting cavities as early as February each year, and they will use them through August for breeding. During the winter, bluebirds will often use nesting boxes for roosting.

Bluebird House - Buying, Building, Dimensions, Hole Size, Placement

MDC offering free bluebird ecology and nest box building programs March 9 in Kansas City - Missouri Department of Conservation

MDC offering free bluebird ecology and nest box building programs March 9 in Kansas City.

Posted: Mon, 26 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

It was as if the wood wasn’t sanded well enough to produce smooth corners. If you are not careful, you could get a sliver of wood on your hand. Drive rebar into the ground, leaving two feet above ground. Clean pole with steel wool and coat it with furniture polish. If you are familiar with robin's egg blue, you will find that most bluebird eggs look fairly similar in color, but they are just a little bit paler.

How to Build a Bluebird Nest Box

Bluebirds prefer open fields with scattered trees so remove as much clutter from your yard as possible to encourage them to nest. The total height for your bluebird house should be between 8-12inches. Usually, the back is a little higher, so the water won’t destroy the roof. With an easy-to-open front for monitoring your Bluebird family, this free DIY Bluebird house is attractive but simple to make.

If they do live locally, is your nesting box specifically designed for bluebirds? The surrounding gardens should be pesticide-free and provide plenty of food (insects, fruits, berries) to sustain the bluebirds and their young. If all these things are in place, it can still take several nesting seasons for birds to finally use an available nesting box.

But first, you want to make sure you’re choosing a box that will help, not harm, your tenants. Having the right size entrance hole will encourage bluebirds to use your home while discouraging other species from taking it over. The entrance hole in your plan should be 1.5 inches wide for eastern and western bluebirds and 1.56 inches wide for mountain bluebirds. There are a few reasons why bluebirds may not use a nesting box.

Both sexes look the same, a jay shaped body with no head crest. They are a bluish gray with slightly more vibrant blue on their head. Look for them mainly in eastern California where they remain year round in pinyon-juniper, oak and ponderosa pine woodland. The California scrub jay is found in dry lowland areas throughout the Pacific seaboard. Look for them year-round in northern, coastal and central California, especially in areas with oak trees as they love acorns.

Mount your bluebird house about 5 feet off the ground

Audubon protects birds and the places they need, today and tomorrow. Test-fit the attached back, unattached sides and inner roof. Two deck screws (1 5/8”) are installed with an impact driver.

Bonus Tip: Give your bluebirds somewhere to perch

If the hatching season is done, I just scoop the poop and whatever remains inside the birdhouse to prevent harmful bacteria and other microbes from thriving. It doesn’t have a built-in anti-squirrel mechanism or accessory. This is dangerous especially when the bluebirds are laying eggs. Frequent disturbance may cause the birds to leave the nest and abandon the eggs. What I did is used an old feeder baffle to keep the squirrels at bay. Baffles are not costly, better to get one and ensure your birds and the safety of their eggs.

To protect the bluebird house against snakes, there are two primary methods. The first (and most effective) method is to mount the bluebird house in a mowed field, at least yards away from any wooded or tall grassy area where a snake may live. This is effective as snakes can often become prey themselves out in the open.

When a tree dies, over time fungus will infect and consume the wood. But it doesn’t happen in a linear fashion, the fungus will spread throughout the wood and sort of slowly dissolve it. This makes the wood ‘punky’ and easy for a bird to peck away at it, eventually making a cavity. His goal is to inspire you to care more about the birds and wildlife in YOUR backyard. Over the past 5 years, he has been focused on improving the habitat in his own yard by doing things like adding native plants, not using pesticides, etc. He is happy to report that over 50 species of birds have now been seen on his 1.5-acre property (that's in a suburban neighborhood).

Here, you’ll see how to build one tried-and-true nesting box design, the Peterson bluebird box. It has an opening precisely sized for bluebirds, which helps exclude unwanted European starlings, plus it’s easy to clean out. As you’ll see in the project directions, pulling out the locking nail on one side allows the front of the house to tilt open for inspection and cleaning. This house can be made for three species of bluebirds, eastern, western and mountain, although the dimensions we give are for the eastern and western species. Mountain bluebirds need a larger (1-1/2-in. x 2-1/4-in.) entry hole. In southern states, bluebirds may start looking for nesting sites as early as January, so have nest boxes ready for them.

House sparrows can be a real nuisance when you are trying toattract and then hopefully have bluebirds nest in your box. The most important element is getting the entrance hole size correct,especially to eliminate larger pest birds such as starlings from usingthe box. Additionally, you can purchase t-posts and attach directly to them. They provide a strong, sturdy way to mount the bluebird house. Nest boxes can be mounted on poles, fence posts, and even trees. But you need to take good care to protect the nestbox from predators.

Because of this unfortunate turn of events, the only way of sustaining their population is by introducing birdhouses. If you are into birdwatching and you want to see bluebirds in your area, you need to get the best bluebird houses that can help them get the food and shelter that they need. However, you may only want to do this in areas where you are worried about vandalism to your nest boxes, like at public golf courses. For the average person monitoring a nest box in their back yard, it makes more sense to mount nest boxes on a metal pole.