Building bluebird nesting boxes

I wake up early and run to the window to look at the fat feathery songbirds I've been feeding through the winter. They charge the backyard with activity. It's never boring out there. They flirt, they dash, they banter; it's an all-day melee of whirring industry.

If you're descended from European or English stock, I have you to thank. Sort of.

For example, it was European immigrants who missed their favourite songbirds when they arrived in New York in the 1800s. So a bunch of them got together and imported 80 European starlings. The birds arrived via ship and one exciting day in 1890, those enthusiastic new Americans released the starlings in Central Park. Now, roughly a century later, there are more than 200 million European starlings in North America. Talk about frisky.

If your ancestors are from the British Isles, don't feel left out. They did the same thing, importing a few hundred house sparrows in the 1800s. House sparrows are now the most widely distributed bird population on the planet.

If you care about bird love, you should know that European starlings are often polygynous (the polite term for a male bird having more than one wife), while house sparrows practise lifetime fidelity. You have to hand it to house sparrows for keeping the spark alive in their relationships and out-breeding the promiscuous starlings.

The only problem with our ancestors' legacy is that both starlings and house sparrows are aggressive cavity nesters, meaning they compete for homes in holey old trees or wooden fence posts.

But since the industrial revolution began (ironically, just around the time the sparrows and starlings were being imported) millions of wooden fence posts and old trees have disappeared to make way for large-scale industrial farming, subdivisions and shopping malls.

The result has been that less aggressive cavity nesters, like native bluebirds, wound up getting wiped out by the starlings and house sparrows because they couldn't find any vacant lodgings in which to raise their families.

So by 1960, bluebirds were almost gone.

But a handful of people missed the sweet song and merry flight patterns of the disappearing bluebirds. They began building bluebird nesting boxes to replace fence posts and trees. The trick was to give the boxes a small (1-1/2 inch diameter) entry hole, so starlings couldn't use the boxes, and locate the boxes away from houses and out-buildings to keep house sparrows from using them.

Today the bluebird population is making a recovery in almost every province in Canada because bluebird activists have placed thousands of boxes along fence lines near open grassy areas where the insect hunting is good enough that they don't have to stray too far from the nest. Keeping the boxes 100 metres from woodlots or bushy areas helps reduce competition from wrens.

Bluebirds love rural areas, so you probably won't attract them if you live in the city. But building a few bluebird boxes is a great excuse to make regular trips to the country to install and monitor the boxes. If you don't know any farmers or people with country property, you can ask golf courses or cemeteries if you can put up boxes in protected locations.

You can also join any of the bluebird organisations listed below, and they will find homes for your boxes.

There's the danger that trips into the countryside to monitor your bluebird boxes will deprive your kids of computer time. To remedy this, devise a computer generated graphing system that will allow your kids to track the number of boxes, eggs, hatchlings and actual number of birds fledged from each box.

Just so you know what you're getting into here, you should be aware that bluebird females often mate with more than one male on the sly, but act like they're faithful wives. Male bluebirds are equally devious, often having more than one mate and more than one nest. So now you know what's keeping the 'bluebird of happiness' so cheerful.

Here are some additional tips:

1. One of the most successful box designs is the Peterson Oval bluebird box, plans available through Lee Valley fro $2.95 ($1.00 goes to the Canadian Nature Federation).
2. You wouldn't leave your baby out on the porch in wind-driven rain, and bluebird parents feel the same way. Make sure your boxes are water-tight and caulked for rain resistance.
3. Mount the box at least 5 feet from the ground on a slick, galvanized steel post so predators can't climb up.
4. Position the box so the entrance hole faces away from prevailing winds.

For detailed construction tips and tons more information, check out the North American Bluebird Society or one of the following:

Calgary Area Bluebird Trail Monitors
Contact: George Loades
167 Canterbury Dr. SW
Calgary, AB
Canada T2W1H3
E-mail: bluebird@creb.com

Ellis Bird Farm, Ltd.
Contact: Myrna Pearman
Box 5090
Lacombe, AB
Canada T4L 1W7
E-mail: myrna@ellisbirdfarm.ab.ca

Mountain Bluebird Trails Conservation Society
Contact: Gwen Tietz
P.O. Box 401 Stn Main
Lethbridge, AB
Canada TIK 3Z1
Tel: 403-553-2780

Southern Interior Bluebird Trail Society
Contact: Terry Tellier
Box 494
Oliver, BC
Canada VOH 1TO
E-mail: t.tellier@shaw.ca

Ontario Eastern Bluebird Society
Contact: Bill Read
2-165 Green Valley Drive
Kitchener, ON
Canada N2P 1K3