Quote:
Originally Posted by FishermanTim
One thing to be aware of when building birdhouses:
Every birdhouse can be plundered by other birds.
What I mean is that even if you build the house with the right size opening, if the house is left unoccupied it will be ransacked by the neighborhood equivilent of the local "gang".
Sparrows are my primary residents due to their bug-catching ability.
(If you get a mating pair in one of your houses, watch them after the young have hatched. They will fly back time and time again with beaks loaded with a multitude of local insects (mostly mosquitos).
Starlings like the challenge of widening the opening, but they don't stay in one spot for long, so soon many more species may check out the house because the opening is large enough for them to enter.
Last but not least are the squirrels. They will try to get at the sunflower seeds and the suet if they can.
They also will try and get into the birdhouses if they are big enough for them. (Note that they LIKE LOTS of insulation, so they will stuff everything including the kitchen sink into a house they have their eyes on.
Still, they are managable and shouldn't deter you in any way.
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I've double layered some of my entrance holes to keep the vermints out
The best thing seems to be to clean it out as soon as you can after the young have left.
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