Birdhouse

“ Whether it be the beautiful and demure bluebird, “bird of happiness,” the sleek and immaculate swallow, the songful wren, “saucy and impudent,” the bustling and industrious chickadee, or the alert and noisy flycatcher, the native tenant of the bird house will be an interesting and entertaining neighbor, always prompt to pay his rent in one form or another or in many forms and with interest. Does one need any special excuse for offering hospitality to such a neighbor? ”

“ Most birds like a cozy home, with enough room to build a good substantial nest therein, but not so large that it will feel like poking in the corners every night to make sure there are no tramps lurking about. The tenants like a safe perch upon which they can rest when they alight before entering their home. And they even like a little promenade deck in front of their house, so the mother can exercise now and then, and still have safety and security from cats, or fighting birds that disagree with the smaller ones. ”

“ If the whole Bird Box is not to be bark covered it is a good plan to see that the roof is protected by bark.
The remaining portions of the house should be stained or painted a very somber color, such as dull gray, brown, or dark green. Avoid all gloss paints as they reflect light and tend to drive away rather than attract the birds. Bright colors should also be avoided. A nicely constructed Bird Box painted a brilliant red with yellow trimmings or some other equally absurd combination such as the writer has seen, is a travesty on proper Bird House construction. ”

“ Aspect of the Pigeon-house.—The front of a pigeon-house should have a south-west aspect to shelter the birds from the cold of the north and east winds, which frequently occasion canker in the mouth or throat of young pigeons. If the birds are kept in a room a hole should be made in the roof of the building fitted with a trap-door, which can be opened or shut at convenience. ”

“ We tie up the nag, loosen her bridle bit, and follow into the meeting-house—a lofty building unplastered at the roof, whose open eaves and shingles give place in summer to nests of wasps, and in the winter to audacious birds, some of which swoop screaming to the pulpit, and beat the window panes in futile flight. ”

“ I was not sufficiently regardful of the fact that their lays are solitary, as the poet has said; that they ask for no witness of their song, nor thirst for human praise. They were all nesting now. But if I heard them less, I saw much more of them, especially of one individual, the male bird of a couple that had made their nest in a hedge a stone's throw from the cottage. A favourite morning perch of this bird was on a small wooden gate four or five yards away from my window. ”

“ Since a theory may be plausible while yet utterly untenable in actual application, it remains to add that abundance of experience in building and placing bird houses all goes to prove the foregoing basic principle soundly correct in practice. With or without benefit of the plans and specifications in such a bulletin as this, a person who takes his cue from a woodpecker will not go far wrong. In planning a bird house, we must continually hark back to the idea of the woodpecker’s burrow—or rather, we should never quite lose sight of it. ”

“ We call them our bird hotels, and one of them, the Hotel Pontchartrain--a martin house--has seventy-six apartments. All winter long we have wire baskets of food hanging about on the trees and then there is a big basin in which the water is kept from freezing by an electric heater. Summer and winter, food, drink, and shelter are on hand for the birds. We have hatched pheasants and quail in incubators and then turned them over to electric brooders. We have all kinds of bird houses and nests. ”

“ He has then a comfortable place to sleep, and an abundance of decaying wood in which to hunt insects on stormy days. An ice-house is a favorite location for him, the warm sawdust furnishing a good burrowing place for a nest or sleeping room. When a building is used as a nesting place, the bird very cunningly drills the entrance close up under the eaves, where it is sheltered from storms, and at the same time out of sight of all prying eyes. ”

“ With a forced confidence in man that is almost pathetic in a bird that loves the forest as he does, he picks up whatever lies about the house or barn in the shape of food—crumbs from the kitchen door, a morsel from the dog's plate, a little seed in the barn-yard, happily rewarded if he can find a spider lurking in some sheltered place to give a flavor to the unrelished grain. ”

“ A place to live, if only a box nailed up on a tree, with an opening small enough to keep out intruders. A bird house more attractive in your own eyes is easily made by any boy or girl handy with a knife or a jig-saw, and really artistic houses, suited to particular birds, are described in various books and magazines, made from pieces of bark, sections of limb, or fir cones. ”

“ So gently familiar are these birds, and so little afraid of people, that one has built a nest under the frequented piazza of the big hotel, and the parent birds flit back and forth unconcerned by the rows of guests that often take chairs and watch the nestlings for long periods. Not only do the parents feed their young while thus watched by crowds but a few feet away, but they fly in under the veranda and capture food right over the heads of the promenaders with equal freedom from fear. ”

“ For bird-lovers who know the mocking-bird only as a captive in our houses he has few attractions: a mere loud-voiced echo of the inharmonious sounds man gathers about his home,—car-bells, street cries, and other unpleasing noises,—and choosing for his performances the hours one wants to sleep. Unfortunate is the neighborhood in which one is kept. Such was my feeling about the bird before I knew him in freedom, where he has a song of his own. ”

“ A pair of these rather undemonstrative matter-of-fact lovers go about looking for some deserted woodpecker's hole in the orchard, peering into cavities in the fence-rails, or into the bird-houses that, once set up in the old-fashioned gardens for their special benefit, are now appropriated too often by the ubiquitous sparrow. Wrens they can readily dispossess of an attractive tenement, and do. ”

“ The rock seemed to love the nest and claim it as its own. I said, what a lesson in architecture is here! Here is a house that was built, but with such loving care and such beautiful adaptation of the means to the end, that it looks like a product of nature. The same wise economy is noticeable in the nests of all birds. No bird could paint its house white or red, or add aught for show.
At one point in the grayest, most shaggy part of the woods, I come suddenly upon a brood of screech owls, full grown, sitting together upon a dry, moss-draped limb, but a few feet from the ground. ”

“ The few hawks and rarer wood species found in these wild places are shy and elusive. More and more, in spite of all they know of us, the birds choose our proximity over the wilderness. Indeed, the longer we live together, the less they fear and suspect us.
II
Using my home for a center, you may describe a circle of a quarter-mile radius and all the way round find that radius intersecting either a house, a dooryard, or an orchard. Yet within this small and settled area I found one summer thirty-six species of birds nesting. ”

“ In its habits it is even more familiar than that species, always preferring the out-buildings, even in large towns, to the neighborhood of the woods, and still further increases its attractions by possessing a charming song, a real song, of sweet notes finely modulated, and uttered, generally, as the bird perches upon a fence or the stable roof, its head thrown back, and its long tail pendent as it sings. ”

“ Even the roofs of the houses bristle with pigeon-lofts and artful-looking structures for the capture of wandering birds. Should a stray pigeon alight on one of these contrivances, attracted by the hemp seed which is profusely scattered thereon, or by the presence of a decoy securely fastened by the leg, a sudden click may be heard, and the bird finds himself in an instant imprisoned in an artful arrangement of wire walls, which has closed on him with the rapidity of a conjuring trick. ”

“ So trustful is the bird that it commonly establishes itself in any of men's works that will supply the necessary accommodation, and a shed, a barn, or any building with an open roof, a chimney that affords a support for the nest, or even the room of an inhabited house—if chance should give free access thereto—to say nothing of extraordinary positions, may be the place of its choice. ”

“ My grocer saves the drippings from his peanut grinder for my birds, so there is no extravagance in giving them this dainty. Song sparrows and bluebirds like it as well as the woodpeckers. On the side of the tray I tack nesting material. So this food house, made out of waste materials, serves several uses. The boy liked it so well he patterned one after it for his birds.
Every autumn a lisping, whispered, dreamy bird song coming from some low elevation has puzzled me. ”

“ For several weeks during the spring and summer of 1909 my home was at the Lamb Inn, a famous posting-house of the great old days, and we had three pairs of birds—throstle, pied wagtail, and flycatcher—breeding in the ivy covering the wall facing the village street, just over my window. I watched them when building, incubating, feeding their young, and bringing their young off. The villagers, too, were interested in the sight, and sometimes a dozen or more men and boys would gather and stand for half an hour watching the birds flying in and out of their nests when feeding their young. ”

“ To make our life more tolerable, deprived as we were of all communication with the outer world and of family affection, we were allowed to keep pigeons and to have gardens. Our two or three hundred pigeon-houses, with a thousand birds nesting all round the outer wall, and above thirty garden plots, were a sight even stranger than our meals. ”

“ In my other books I have described and told how to make various forms of bird-houses, including my invention of the woodpecker's house now being manufactured by many firms, including one in Germany, but the reader should make his own bird-houses. ”

“ And what a privilege it is to have birds of such interesting habits and beautiful plumage in your neighborhood! How the long country roads are enlivened, how the green fields are lit up, as one of the brilliant birds rises from a fence-post and flies over them! In the city, it is rare good luck, indeed, to have a pair nest in an oak where you can watch them and even a passing glimpse or an occasional visit is something to be thankful for. ”

“ A pigeon took to flight, then another, and still another; he turned his head, following them with his gaze until they were out of sight, and then returned to his melancholy contemplation.
The birds came and went, entered the pigeon-house and left in agitated manner, cooing loudly; they circled above the dwelling, sought the trees, alighted on the thatch of the cabin, descended to earth in spiral flight. ”

“ The eaves are dripping on the south side of this simple roof, while the titmouse lisps in the pine, and the genial warmth of the sun around the door is somewhat kind and human.
After two seasons, this rude dwelling does not deform the scene. Already the birds resort to it, to build their nests, and you may track to its door the feet of many quadrupeds. Thus, for a long time, nature overlooks the encroachment and profanity of man. ”

“ Suet wired to the limb of a tree on the lawn will give comfort and nourishment to many a Chickadee, Nuthatch and Downy Woodpecker. To make a bird sanctuary nesting sites and food are the first requirements. There appears to be no reason why town and city parks should not be made into places of great attraction for the wild birds. ”

“ The chances are that the bird-loving boy or girl will make the better citizen.
Birds That Adapt Themselves to Nesting Boxes.
There is quite a large number of birds that easily adapt themselves to the artificially made house. The main thing is to consider the type of house that will appeal to the intended tenants, one that approaches nearest to their natural desires and nesting sites.
Bluebirds and house wrens are the easiest to entice to the nesting box. Plain weather stained boxes or those covered with bark have proven to be the best type. ”

“ In boring the entrance hole, tip the bit upward slightly so that rain water will not drip inward.
Some device for attaching the house to a building or tree should be provided. It is best to have the house stationary to prevent undue swinging in a high wind, perhaps causing the breaking of eggs and discomfort to the mother bird.
Houses of unusual shape or design are not considered as good as the plainer types, the idea being to make each house harmonize as naturally as possible with the surroundings. ”

“ In city parks and country places, where plenty of trees shade the village streets and lawns, it comes near you, half hopping, half running, with dignified unconsciousness and even familiarity, all the more delightful in a bird whose family instincts should take it into secluded woodlands with their shady dells. ”

“ The floor should be an earthen one, beaten hard, like the floors of some barns. Bricks are too cold. Planks harbor insects, retain bad smells, and form coverts for rats and mice. The roof of the aviary should be semicircular or shelving, with vines and flowing creepers trailing over it, so that there shall be a rustle of green leaves steeped in sunshine, and air laden with sweet perfume to delight the birds within. There should be also creepers and shrubs growing inside for the birds to nest in. ”