Affordable Housing

For as long as we've walked The Platz there have been nest boxes for the song birds.  It began in the first year with a couple a fashioned out of scrap lumber and then evolved every year thereafter with a dozen boxes or so being added every other year.  Before two decades had passed the inventory of bird boxes plateaued around five-dozen and has hovered there ever since.  The standard of bird box design eventually resulted in this...

A pine box, treated with a sealant and manufactured in the basement workshop from a template.  The hinged and latching roof can be flipped open for inspection or cleaning.  Constructed of affordable materials it also boasted standardized, interchangeable parts.  Taking a page from Henry Ford's success story the beauty of this design was that if a roof or wall failed it could easily be replaced with parts salvaged from an earlier box.  Some boxes afield now consist of parts originally manufactured from three different years.  

This practice continues to this day with four refurbished boxes being installed last Sunday - just in time for the spring and summer cavity-nesting songbirds.

The downfall of this design is the pine used in its construction.  Even when sealed the elements will eventually compromise the wood  with the roof usually going first followed by a wall or floor.

The latest iteration of nest box is this...

Clean design lines with minimal hardware - access to the box is by means of a wall that flips open for inspection and cleaning.  It is also constructed of cedar - treated with a non-toxic wood preservative for lasting duty.  The new cedar box design is now entering the fourth year of service without any replacement parts required.  Nevertheless, these too are constructed of interchangeable parts.

If you decide to place affordable housing on  your property for your fine feathered friends always remember to clean-out your boxes over the winter or early spring to provide for a clean and sanitary place to live.  The wrens, bluebirds, tree swallows and other cavity nesting birds thank you...