The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1913-04-21
NOW PUT UP BIRD HOUSES.
Any Boy Can Make One at Trifing
Cost-should Have Watertight Top.

CoSt-Shou1d Have Watertight Top.
Now is the time to put up bird
houses and nesting boxes. 1t would
have been better to erect them last
fall with a little warm material III the
bottom Of each, so that woOdpeckers,
nuthatches or chickadees could find
warmth and shelter during the long
cold winter nights. But where Eng
lish sparrows are numerous they usually
find and occupy such boxes in the win
ter, fill them up with nesting material
early in the spring and drive native
birds away. If the boxes are put up
now the native birds will have some
chance to keep the sparrows out.
Let no one fail to put up bird boxes
because of the expense. Any boy can
make them and the material needed
costs little if anything. The bluebird,
martin, tree swallow, wren, flicker,
chickadee. screech owl and wood duck
all nest naturally in hollow trees or
cavities in tree limbs.
/ a hollow branch, FIVE or more inches
inside diameter, trimmed from jan apple
tree, may be made into several excel
/ lent nesting boxes by saving it into
sections each a foot or more long, nail
on each section q piece of board or
Single for a roof, plugging the bottom
. cutting hole on one side near the top
for the entrance and fastening it up
right to tree, building or pole. Old
tomato cans, small milk cans and even
flower pots may be used in a similar
manner if they are put up in the shade;
otherwise the sun will overhead the
young birds. A few shingles, bits of
boards or any elongated small wooden
box like a deep cigar box will make
nesting box that will last for one
season or more. Pieces of slabs from
the sawmin, nailed together to form a
rectangular box, with height greater
than width, will make an attractive
rustic bird home.
Nesting boxes may be constructed
from bark, if provided with a solid
bottom and top to nail the bark on
Every nesting box should have a water
tight top, but the bottom need not be
so tight. The entrance hole should be
not less than one inch in smallest di-
ameter for a wren, one and one-half
inch for bluebirds or swallows, two
inches for martins, three inches for q
flicker and four inches for a screech
owl or wood duck. The entrance may
be round square or oblong and it is
better to have the roof iut over it two
or three inches to shed the rain. The
costly boxes and bird houses made by
manufacturers of such goods are better
than most of the homemade ones, but
they are not essential, as the birds
usually are not fastidious, provided the
box and the entrance hole are large
enough and the domicile affords a safe
shelter from sun, wind and rain.
| Many people have been led to believe
I that birds are shy of painted houses
because of the smell or appearance of
the paint but this is an unimportant
| detail. Birds that nest in hollow trees
naturally go to a weathered nesting
! box. but sometimes the same birds pre-
fer a painted one. Any bird house
that is exposed constantly to the sun
on a pole should be painted in Hgh+
coiors so that it will not so readily alb
sorb heat. In such a situation a house
with double walls is a protection tC
the birds.
Boxes built on the European plar
and shaped internally like a wood
/ pecker's hole are excellent. 1t is bes
1 to have some way of opening the boz
| so that undesirable tenants may bt
readily evicted The last annual re
| port of the Massachusetts state orni
biologist, which may be obtained from
the secretary of agriculture, Stat
| House, Boston, tells how the trouble
some English sparrows may be dispose
of.
| Small shallow open boxes about fiv
inches inside diameter put up under a
open shed roof in a grape arbor or eve
under broad caves frequently are al
cepted for nesting places by robins, Q
barn swallows. A cleat or little shell
nailed on barn rafter or even lat
nailed across two rafters will help 'th
swallows to a nesting place when ra
ters are too smooth to offer safe point
of attachment for their mud bui
= homes.