BIRD STUDY 17 



BIRD HOUSES 



Much can be done to attract summer birds about our 

 homes by providing nesting places for them. Wrens, Bluebirds, 

 Martins, and sometimes Chickadees, build in bird houses but 

 each has individual taste in style and location of house. 



Wrens are the least particular; they will build in any- 

 thing from an old boot or tin can to a fine carpenter-made bunga- 

 low. The authors have known them to build in the tool box 

 of a self-binder. They prefer a place with a small cavity, how- 

 ever, as it is their custom to fill completely the cavity with nest 

 material. We really cannot place their house too near our own. 

 They like it near the ceiling of the front or the back porch, where 

 we are constantly passing, for although they scold us roundly 

 for living in our own homes and for our impudence in encroach- 

 ing on their preserves they really like to be near us and they 

 feel safe in our presence. The entrance to the Wren's home 

 should be the size of a twenty-five cent piece. 



The Bluebird's house should not be large, for it does not 

 build a bulky nest. The entrance must be the size of a fifty-cent 

 piece. It loves to have its house placed in the open — along a 

 fence, or even in the middle of a front or back lot, preferably in 

 a line of bushes. 



To secure a Chickadee's nest in one's yard is quite an 

 achievement. They do not readily build in a house or in a made 

 home of any kind that is not a part of a standing tree. Fre- 

 quently they have been induced to build by excavations made in 

 dead trunks. One nest was secured in the stump of a' dead 

 cherry tree by sawing half way through the trunk above and 

 below where the nest was to be, carefully splitting off the front, 

 making a gourd-shaped excavation, boring a hole in the top, 

 and then nailing the face back on. Another was secured by 

 cutting off a dead apple limb, excavating the center of the 

 stump from the top, boring a hole in the side near the top, and 

 then nailing on a round piece of board for a roof. The natural 

 nesting place of these birds is in old Woodpecker's holes, and 

 the nearer we simulate these the better the birds like it. 



