Bird houses

Give your feathered friends a place to stay

Unfortunately there’s no assurance that birds will move in to your bird house, but following these suggestions will help make it more likely.

The best time to set up a bird house is before the breeding season, usually late summer, autumn or early winter at the latest. This gives the birds time to find the house and decide to move in. If you wait until birds actually start showing up in your garden in the spring, it’ll be too late.

Bird houses are usually designed with a particular species or type of bird in mind. So know which birds frequent your area before you choose. A bird house that isn’t in the right habitat is a bird house that will stay empty.

When deciding how high to put bird houses, consider both the birds’ needs and your own. You want the box somewhere you can watch it and enjoy the sight of your guests. It also needs to be in a location where you’ll be able to take the box down for cleaning once the birds have left.

Your bird house also needs to be high enough to be safe from predators, and in an uncluttered area so the birds can fly in and out easily. Two to four metres above ground is a good starting point. Low-dwelling species such as robins and wrens will prefer the lower end of that scale, while high-flying woodpeckers and swifts will want five metres or more.

The best way to mount a bird house is on a pole. A smooth metal pole, plastic pipe or a greased wooden one, will help keep cats and other predators out of the house. If you mount the house in a tree, use wire or nylon cord to bind it to the trunk instead of driving nails into a living tree.

If possible, set the house up with the entrance hole facing away from prevailing winds, which helps keep rain out; facing north or east is usually ideal. If you decide to have more than one bird house, don’t place them any closer than 8 metres from each other, since birds are territorial.

If you have a feeder, don’t put the bird house near it. It may seem convenient, but the noise and crowding around a bird feeder discourages nesting. However, having conveniences such as a bird feeder or bath in your garden does increase the chance that birds will notice the house and move in.

Some birds, such as swifts, starlings, and martins, favour bird houses mounted on to your own house, just under the eaves. If you do this, consider mounting a small shelf just under the bird house to catch droppings before they stain the sides of your house. Eave dwellers are an exception to the above suggestion about multiple bird houses. They are used to more crowded conditions, so you can try several bird houses close together.