Housing Shortage
Posted by Tasha on January 17, 2003
Q: my dad put a bird house up last summer but nothing came. Did he do it right?
A: I'm going to assume that the birdhouse your dad placed was properly built for the kind of bird(s) you wanted to attract.
There are two possible answers to your question:
1. Even with the best built birdhouse, placed in just the right location, no bird selects it as a nest site. We don't know all of the reasons a bird chooses site A over site B. Maybe no bird chose your dad's house this past summer.
2. It may also be that although you didn't see any bird in the house, they were there anyway. Many birds are quite secretive about their activities and you may have missed them. One thing you can do to be sure is to take the birdhouse down and open to check. No harm will be done if you do it during the winter or early spring and you'll be able to tell if a bird did use the box last summer. Even if the house was not used, clean it up and replace it as you may attract a resident this coming summer.
John Wiessinger ( January 18, 2003)