A COLONY OF EAVE SWALLOWS 



Photo by Fred B. McKechnie 



This colony of swallows built their nests beneath the eaves of a barn at Luenburg, 

 Vt. Note the partial support given by the narrow molding. These eave swallows become 

 much attached to their homes, and if undisturbed will return year after year with unfailing 

 regularity. 



but are now manufactured by at least 

 two people in this country. Those on 

 my place have been occupied by screech- 

 owls, bluebirds, chickadees, tree-swal- 

 lows, flickers, white-breasted nuthatches, 

 and great-crested flycatchers. House- 

 wrens, which are very local in our part 

 of the country, have so far avoided them, 

 and I have failed ignominiously to at- 

 tract either the downy or the hairy wood- 

 peckers, both of which frequent my 

 woods. 



One firm makes bird-houses out of 

 natural hollow logs or limbs, a hole bored 

 in the side, and with wooden cap and 

 bottom, while another makes an imita- 

 tion woodpecker's nest of pottery. The 

 Berlepsch type are, however, in my opin- 

 ion, far and away ahead of these others. 



BIRDS THAT WILL NEST IN PREPARED 

 HOUSES 



About houses and buildings, particu- 

 larly those on our farms, the ordinary 

 type of bird-house rather than the hollow 

 log is perhaps more appropriate. Blue- 

 birds, tree-swallows, and house-wrens 

 take to them readily, and if you have a 

 large house on a high pole you may be 

 lucky enough to attract a colony of 

 martins. Chickadees, great-crested fly- 

 catchers, and screech-owls may use these 

 boxes, and the following is a list of birds 

 recorded as having bred in nest boxes o£ 

 one sort or another: 



Wood-duck, sparrow-hawk, screech- 

 owl, flicker, red-headed woodpecker, 

 great-crested flycatcher, starling, Eng- 



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