Building a Birdhouse, the Dummies Version

Bluebird nesting box

The research staff here at the Antisocial Network often watch the many birds who visit the feeders mounted on the break room deck. It's such a favorite pastime that there's a shelf of bird identification books and binoculars by the window with the best view. On a good day, you can spot dozens of different species, from house finches to a pileated woodpecker, at the feeders; not to mention the occasional red-shouldered hawk patrolling the yard for unwary diners. There are also a scattering of birdhouses on the grounds, but none of them were built following the instructions Mandi Rogier supplied to eHow.com visitors in "Plans to Build a Birdhouse."¹ We suspect no bird would bother...

If one were to follow Mandi's plans, one would construct a diamond-shaped birdhouse about 6½ inches on a side with a one-inch hole for, as Rogier puts it, "the entrance and exit of the birdhouse" – we had to admit this gave us pause: we know of no birdhouses that have separate entrance and exit holes...

Mandi also suggests constructing the birdhouse out of ½-inch plywood, though we don't think that's a good idea. That's because interior plywood will delaminate (she doesn't specify exterior grade). She also didn't specify waterproof glue...On top of it all, most birds, at least according to those who know anything about the topic, prefer thicker walls for their nesting sites.

Rogier performed a copy-reword-paste job on a couple of sources, but in doing so she decided to change some of the dimensions. The original site (we won't link to it here because, frankly, the plans are not much better than Rogier's reword) specified a 1-3/8-inch hole saw for the entrance hole. Mandi, based on her vast experience with birding, decided that size would be too big and instead specified a "1-inch hole cutter for power drill." Her problem? You build birdhouses of a standard size and shape, with a standard entrance size, to allow a preferred species to enter and still keep out predators. With a 1-3/8" hole, you might attract several species of songbirds. As for the one-inch hole Mandi specifies? Maybe you'd get chickadees, but they're about the only common species small enough to use the box.

Birders know that birds have a preferred interior size for their nests, and even with the one-inch hole size the box should still be about eight inches deep. With Mandi's design, the lowest point of the floor is perhaps 4½" below the lip of the hole. Of course, if she had followed the original directions, the lip would have been slightly higher, but there's that "copy-reword-paste" problem again...

No, Mandi did lousy research and concocted lousy plans. She should have at the minimum mentioned different sizes for different species of interest and also at the least provided correct instructions to build one functional birdhouse, not a decorative one. She did none of that, however, and that's on her -- as is her second Dumbass of the Day award in less than a month.

The Antisocial Netwok birders recommend searching the internet for birdhouse plans based on the species you wish to attract: that way you have a better chance of ending up with plans that are correct for the species. We found several bluebird box plans here; and they're far more authentic than what Rogier published!

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_7343474_plans-build-birdhouse.html

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