Attract Bluebirds With Nest Boxes

Rich Edie:

Hi, Rich Edie with Wild Birds Unlimited in Cypress and on Memorial Drive. Today I want to talk to you about nest boxes. As you can see behind me here, we’ve got a large variety of nest boxes.

So for instance, this is a screech owl box. Houston is home to a lot of screech owls. Screech owls are great to have in your yard as they love to eat rodents and snakes. These need to go about 10 feet in the air and they need to be going up sometime in the early spring. Today I really want to focus on Eastern Bluebird boxes. Why do I want to focus on that today? Well, now is the time, in the middle of December, early January, to be thinking about getting your Eastern Bluebird box up. You might be asking also, Houston has Eastern Bluebirds, we definitely do. Eastern Bluebirds are making a strong comeback in the Houston area, and they really rely on us for nest boxes.

Why is that? Well, they’re secondary cavity nesters. That means they rely on holes and trees that have been made by woodpeckers, or old pecan trees that are hollowing out. Unfortunately, the competition is very high for those cavity nesters, particularly with the European Starlings that we have in our area. So putting a bluebird box up in the backyard greatly improves their chances of rearing young. And the thing about bluebirds is if you get bluebirds to move into your nest box, you can get easily get two, three, or even four broods every year.

The important part about getting a bluebird box up this time of year is right now they are scoping the area looking for potential nesting sites. So in my own backyard, I’ve got a bluebird box up and I’m observing the male and the female going in and out of the box right now. They’re not nesting. They’re really just checking it out to see if it’s someplace that they think they want to start this spring on. So getting that nest box up right now is really going to improve your chances. So I say right now, I’m talking December, early January, you want to have that nest box up and ready to go.

Keep your eye on it. If you notice sparrows start to get interested in it, continue to open the box and empty it out. Don’t let the sparrows take control, because once the bluebirds find the box and they move in, they will take care of themselves after that.

You see a variety of houses on the shelf here. This is one made out of wood, and these two are made out of poly lumber. These are our EcoTough. These wear really well, they don’t fade, they don’t crack, they don’t split. And all of these houses are very functional in terms of ventilation, drainage holes, and the ability to easily clean the house out. So if we have one other unique one here on this shelf, here is a bluebird box, where if you want to see what’s going on in the house, you open up the side and you can see what’s going on inside the house. But this also gives you the ability to clean it out as well.

So bluebird boxes are a lot of fun to have in your backyard. If you say, “I don’t have bluebirds.” Well, you could easily get chickadees to move into these houses as well. So putting a nest box in your backyard is a great way to further enhance the enjoyment in your backyard, and you’re really helping the birds. These boxes just need to be placed about five feet in the air. We’ve got mounting poles that you can put them on. You can hang them on your fence, or on the side of your house, wherever you would like. So very easy to install and will really help the birds.

So if you’re interested in trying to attract bluebirds, come see us, we’ll be glad to tell you more. Thank you.