SPEND THESE "INSIDE" WINTER DAYS BUILDING BIRD HOUSES

HELLO from your Garden Daddy here at the garden home! I have been thinking ahead already, with all these snowy days and cabin fever at an all time high, about the many preps I must do during this cold weather to get this garden home ready for spring and the do-ahead chores that will help the transition to that time of year. With so many days this winter season where one cannot get outside for long stretches at a time, this is the perfect time to start your birdhouse projects. I will attach several sites with house plans for an assortment of our feathered neighbors that one can do in a relative short time frame when you will only get a few hours of good weather outside just now. The cutting & sawing can be done after you have made your pattern(s) inside and then return the cut pieces to the inside warmth of the house or your garage and glue & nail together and paint or stain as needed.
Birds not only eat insects that can negatively influence your flower and vegetable production but they are quite the little entertainers and make your yard come alive with wildlife and add enjoyment to all who view their visual splendor. Make several different types of houses so you can increase your chances to attract a variety of species. Do not forget to make a few of the "platform" type of nesting ledges that many of our Jackson, TN and birds of the Mid-South like here in our area. These work mainly for Morning Doves, Robins, Phoebes and a few Jays will most often use this type of nesting site.
Here are two of my favorite sites that give easy to read and design houses that I think you might get some use out of. I hope you will follow this advice and give a little gift to your own garden home guests that come and give you so much enjoyment. If you are like me, there are plenty of scraps of lumber and lots of nails and screws to make any of these projects listed in these sites. Remember when building to make some area on the house, either the roof or the bottom or a side panel one where you have it hinged to make for easier cleaning out once your fledglings have "flown the coop". If you clean this out immediately after the first brood leaves and replace it quickly, you can often get a second setting of eggs and even a third in some areas and certain conditions being perfect (such as food & water availability, etc.).

http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/birdhous/index.htm

(This is part of the site from the USGS, the United States Geological Society)

http://www.50birds.com

(This site gives you the home page and then you can pull down from the top heading under "Houses & Feeders" and find plans, dimensions, etc., as well as coloring pages for the kids, other birding information, etc.)
I leave you today with this gardening affirmation in mind today: "There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before." Robert Lynd