Having a pair of birds choose your birdhouse for their nest feels like receiving an honor. Listening for the first chirps from hatchlings, watching the parents come and go bringing food, and then watching the baby birds test their wings arouse many empathetic emotions. However, there’s more to attracting birds to your yard than simply putting up a birdhouse. You need food, water, habitat, and the right size wooden bird houses for the types of birds that you want to attract.
- What Types of Birds Use Birdhouses?
The types of birds that use birdhouses are called cavity nesters. In the wild, woodpeckers would chisel out their own holes while other birds use knotholes in trees or cavities created by woodpeckers or decay. In addition to woodpeckers, cavity nesters include:
- Flickers
- Finches
- Sparrows
- Chickadees
- Tits
- Thrushes, including robins
- Wrens
- Warblers
- Flycatchers
- Nuthatches
- Creeper
- Swifts
- Swallows
- Ducks
- Owls
- Kestrels
Each of these types of birds has preferences as far as habitat, the size of the birdhouse, and the placement of the birdhouse.
- What Attracts Birds to Your Yard?
According to a British study, the birds you want to attract will need to see your yard and birdhouse as a place where they can successfully raise their family. Accomplish that, and the birds will return year after year.
- Choosing a Birdhouse
Birdhouses should provide ventilation to prevent the interior from becoming too hot or cool for the hatchlings. It should have drainage holes in the bottom. The size of the birdhouse and of it’s entrance hole should be based on the size of the birds that you want to attract. Birdhouses made of high quality, durable materials can last year after year.
- Food Sources
A mix of natural foods from plants native to your area and foods from a birdfeeder ensure the birds that come to your yard have an adequate supply regardless of weather conditions, such as drought. Consider whether you want to attract birds that prefer seeds, berries, or insects. For birds that feed on insects, you’ll need plants that provide food and habitats for those insects and their larva. You’ll also want to reduce your use of insecticides. Also consider that some birds have particular dietary preferences. Bluebirds, for example, feed on mealworms while woodpeckers enjoy suet.
- Water Sources
Birds require water for both drinking and bathing. To avoid stagnation and attracting mosquitoes, you’ll need to have a filtration system in water features or to empty and refill birdbaths daily. Some birds, such as hummingbirds, enjoy flying through spray from fountains, and the sound and sparkle of water splashing of even a birdbath fountain can attract birds to your yard for the water supplied.
- Landscaping
Adjust your landscaping to reflect the preferences of the birds that you want to attract. Some birds prefer open, field-like nesting sites. Others prefer very sheltered sites. Some birds, like martins, like nesting near each other, while others prefer more isolated sites. While birds of prey, like owls and kestrels prefer high nesting sites from which they can spot their prey, others prefer lower nesting sites. You’ll also want to provide roosting sites in trees and shrubs for birds.
If you’re looking for special, high quality wooden bird houses with unique designs, contact Beaver Dam Woodworks for Amish-built birdhouses.
