Birdhouse Plans for (and By) Dummies

badly-designed birdhouse

The bird watchers on our staff, and there are several, are often puzzled by the birdhouses that they find in stores and online,¹ not because the birdhouses aren't cute – they often are – but because whoever built them seems to know little or nothing about birds. DIY "plans" are frequently no better. That's what brought us to today's DotD nominee, Hunker.com contributor Caroline Burke and her post, "Attract Birds Into Your Yard With This Modern Birdhouse DIY."

A couple of our staffers built some bird boxes not long ago, using plans that had been designed by a birder. They meet the guidelines published by a number of birding groups (e.g., the National Audubon Society) for the box's inside dimensions and the size and location of the hole. We looked over Burke's little post, and it was just a mishmash of numbers. Caroline's plans make a box with an internal area of 3½x4½ that's 7½ inches deep, with a 2-inch hole centered 5 from the bottom. That corresponds to no plans on Audubon's spec sheet.
Of course, we were already a little suspicious of Caroline for some of the boilerplate bullshit she included in her article, lines such as,

• "...if you don't fancy cutting your own lumber just take our dimensions to your local hardware store and have them cut for you!" – We rather doubt that Home Depot is gonna cut six small pieces of lumber, no matter how cute you are.
• "[You'll need] Exterior plywood or hardwood (like cedar, pine, or oak)" – Ummm, Caroline? Cedar and pine aren't hardwood! Oh, yeah, and exterior plywood is often treated with chemical poisons...
• "Cut the hole using a power drill with a 2-inch hole saw attachment..." – Well, yeah, but how many people who need to have the hardware store cut their lumber own a 2-inch hole saw?
• "[You'll need] Wood glue" – It had better be exterior glue, Caroline...
• "Then you just need to decide where to hang it!" – People who actually know something about birds will point out that the box placement is quite important. Handing it on your front porch and hoping to attract an eagle is... unlikely.

Burke's plans don't fit any common bird species and her grasp of woodworking is, at best, sparse. We also note that there is no drainage hole and that Burke's "plans" call for all joints to be glued and nailed. That will make it difficult in the extreme to clean out old nest material...

Those are some of the reasons why Caroline is collecting another Dumbass of the Day award. We suggest that next time she crib her plans from an authoritative site instead of from one of her fellow mommybloggers!

¹ Stores such as Wild Birds Unlimited excepted, of course

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