It’s that time of year to hang birdhouses! Has anyone seen any Purple Martins this year?
Cousin gifted a steel pole with crossing members. Not quite as high as I’d like but I guess it’s okay. These gourds appear to be painted but they’re not. Most have just been sprayed with Thompson Water Seal and some sprayed with Varathane (which later on I read was for indoor use - oh well). Trying the crescent holes for the Purple Martins. A few with the 2 1/8" holes. The very lowest are for Bluebirds - 1 1/2" holes. Hope they like them!
Trying the Purple Martin hotel again this year with gourds hanging. Last year the birds left two days before a storm blew the top off. I’d like to build another hotel. Just want it to be lightweight. Design ideas?
These were painted with white finish. A few had been sprayed with the Thompson Water Seal and then painted white which was not recommended. Resulted with some paint peeling. Maybe the P.M.'s won’t mind. I’m not a very good painter. Big kettle gourds at top.
For the House Wrens. Go some more that I need to hang. They’re always putting their nests where I don’t want them, so I decided to help them out. 1" holes.
I decided to go with these Pennington Red Cedar birdhouses from walmart. They were $10 each in 2022 so i bought 20 of them. They are up to $14 for one or $23 for a two pack now. I dont think i could build them for that cost let alone the time involved and i hung 10 last spring. All were full of nests so i got total acceptance.
This group isnt letting me copy a good link to wally world…but easy to find with a search. They are in my local stores with the other feeders but im not sure if the price is higher in store than online.
FYI i painted about 4 of them to see if colors mattered…for me it didnt…well for the birds it didnt. I have heard or read that painting them the rustoleum brown color is best but im not sure why. Not sure if they need painted at all honestly.
I got motivated by watching Stephan’s video… which is going to give me to more hungry momma birds feeding their babies from my orchards.
I just make basic Bluebird boxes with a rustic top; I have plenty of 1x lumber from our mill. These are mostly quickies to hang on the corner posts at the orchard. I may have them mounted too high, I get Barn Swallows instead of Bluebirds, but that’s okay.
Just make sure those gourds have some drain holes, otherwise they could fill with water.
kris, I’ve also bought several of those birdhouses from Wal-Mart. You can’t beat $12. The bluebirds and tree swallows love them. I also pick up birdhouses at craft fairs. You can usually find them for pretty cheap, but well made.
In addition to the birdhouses, I also plant lots of native grasses and flowering plants to attract insects for the birds to feed on.
We have a lot of bluebirds visit our yard in the late Winter. I’ve mounted bird boxes for them in various locations without success. Even the house finches and sparrows avoid bird houses placed under eaves. I’ve been wondering if a fear of rodents is keeping them away.
Interesting, Richard. Do you have anything that could be attracting predators? I read someone had an owl house up near their bluebird houses and the birds stopped using them. Once they moved the owl box the bluebirds came back.
I have no need for that, since the neighborhood is home to a pair of red tails, 2 pairs of sharp shinned falcons, and a horned owl that roosts nearby most evenings.
For that reason I positioned boxes well out of site from would-be raptor perches.
Last year at about this time I priced a finished birdhouse gourd at a farm supply store for about $14. Thought that was way too high at the time but after planting the gourds, harvesting, drying and finishing them I’m having 2nd thoughts, Homemade gourd birdhouses are a lot of work.
Yes, I drilled four 5/16" holes in the bottoms of each. Just concerned that I may have made the entrance holes too high.
I’m tempted to purchase some P.M. decoys and maybe the “Dawn Song” music. Maybe not though as if the birds don’t show up at least I will have an excuse.
Does anyone have advice for keeping wasp nests from being built in birdhouses? I put up a variety of birdhouses in my orchard several years ago and pulled them all because of wasp nests getting built in several of them.
Edited to add: I had forgotten about this happening in my orchard and this thread got me to wondering about it again. A Google search turned up rubbing bar soap or petroleum jelly on the inside of the roof. Apparently wasps can’t attach their nests to the slick surface and will move on elsewhere.
I was just wanting some bluebirds, cardinals, wrens, smaller woodpeckers, or really just whatever. Just little splashes of color, movement, and song to add to the garden and orchard. In the last few years I’ve got a good population of big native bees that are constantly working, moving, and buzzing. I’ve grown to love that hum that comes from them as I walk by. Birds of different sorts would just add another layer to the rhythm and dance.
Way Out West I hoped to lure in a pair or two of violet-winged swallows. I got a pair of Black-capped chickadees. After more checking I learned the box needs to be deeper for swallows. So I will put out a box for chickadees & build a 9" deep box for swallows.
BTW I make the entry hole 3/4" high by 1 1/4" wide. This keeps house sparrows out. I put the houses out about two weeks before swallows usually arrive for my area. Cornell birds website can help you determine when that is likely to be for your locale.
You can count on Stephan the engineer to come up with ideas to keep a birdhouse useful for 10 years. Those angled cuts to lead water away from the house floor will become part of my next bird house.
I’m interested in knowing how much swaying of the birdhouses that the different birds will put up with. I’ve read that purple martins will accept a good deal of swaying, but I have no idea what house wrens or bluebirds will accept. House wrens will put their nests in a lot of different places though. My guess is that what they prefer and what they will accept is not necessarily the same,
I have put up many birdhouse gourds over the years.
From my observations, most birds don’t occupy gourds that sway much. ( hanging from a wire ) they don’t trust it .
Have had better luck putting them on trees with a small branch sticking through the hole where the wire would be, no ( not much )
Swaying
I’ve improved some of my swaying gourds by tying them more securely. I painted the wren gourds white and then read that white was the worst color for wren houses. Red is much better. Oh, well.
I’m wondering about reusing the martin gourds by just cleaning them out of the nest after the martins leave. I’ve read that this is difficult, and the advice is to plant new gourds. While I was planning on planting a few gourd seeds this year, I did not know this. Advice?
When would be the appropriate date to start/plant gourd seeds indoors to transplant around May 1st?
My packet of birdhouse gourd says, “When to start inside: 2 to 4 weeks before your average last frost date, recommended for areas with short growing seasons.”
“When to sow outside: RECOMMENDED 2 to 4 weeks after your average last frost date, and when soil temperature is at least 60°F, ideally 70°F.”
I would try both methods, dividing my seed number in half. Experience will teach me which works better in my situation. (I don’t know how to get soil temperature readings, but someone else can tell you. Here lots of stuff needs be started indoors since our ground stays cool quite a while.)
I would like to be early planting gourds this year although the gourd certainly do not like the cold soil. By harvesting early there would be more time for drying. Last year the gourds dried at various rates. Some I forced drying by hanging them over the wood stove. I managed to get them all up by the end of February. Hopefully some Purple Martins will show up. The only thing that I have seen this year is a couple of Starlings on the P.M. hotel.
If i was to purchase anything commercial I think that I would go with the pulley system that raises and lowers the gourds up and down the poles. The birds will have to show up before I spend any money on them.
Late friends of ours used to have some amazing gatherings of all sorts. There were singing parties, Halloween parties, August skygazings when meteor showers were supposed to be at their peek, and once a bluebird house building party. Probably ten or a dozen of us built our own. In advance, George had cut out most of the various wood pieces from a pattern with his power saws, so the hard work was already. Some of us had more experience with a hammer than others, and a few built birdhouses even though they didn’t have a place to put them. My wife and I came home with a couple extras, and we had posts and places to put them. I’ve kept a few going with repairs, so we still have a couple that date back to that party, and I swear that the bluebirds like them best.
