Birdhouses Although our native birds prefer their own handiwork you can make a birdhouse, they are great fun to decorate, and lots of introduced birds will use them, including the pretty yellow finches.
Blackbirds will use a nesting shelf where they are safe from cats. You can make a simple wooden shelf with a roof and open sides attached to a shed or out-building. And if the birds don't use your birdhouse, it will still be a great decoration in the garden! (See our Birdhouse Project)
Help the Birds Meet a bird's basic needs with food, water, shelter and a nesting place; they'll reward you with hours of entertainment and fewer insect pests!
When shelter, food and water are provided in a garden, birds can become used to your presence and will be more readily seen, although they will never get used to cats.
You can become and amateur 'ornithologist', or bird expert, and keep a list number of different birds that you see in your garden.
Have Fun
Helping birds is great fun and it helps the environment too. Happy Gardening!
Birdhouses are available from lots of craft and hardware stores, or you can make your own. A roost outside the entrance can make it easy for predator birds to steal eggs or fledglings.
A birdhouse needs to be big enough to take a nest and bird family - but not too big! The entry hole should admit the parent birds but not unwanted visitors. 42mm hole will admit starlings but exclude nest-robbing myna birds.
A metal cover surrounding the opening will help to prevent larger birds and predators forcing their way into the birdhouse. Soft copper sheet or other soft metal is easy to work with - get a grown-up to do this for you! Make sure that the edges are smooth and or they will injure the parent birds and fledglings.
Place newspaper on the table or surface you are using. Paint the house with a base-colour paint and leave to dry overnight.
When it is dry, use craft paints suitable for outdoors to decorate the house as you please. Flowers, birds, gardens, big bright sun motifs all look great.
Attach a short cord to hang the birdhouse or have a grown-up help you to ready it for fixing to a tree. A birdhouse needs to be hung of fixed in a tree or on a wall where the birds will be safe from cats and larger birds. Again, have a grown-up help you.
Birdhouses must be cleaned out each spring - good housekeeping is for the birds as well - to reduce the risk of disease.
Decorate the house as you please
Decorated and, oh, so cute!
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Although our native birds prefer their own handiwork you can make a birdhouse, they are great fun to decorate, and lots of introduced birds will use them, including the pretty yellow finches.
Paint Brushes
When it is dry, use craft paints suitable for outdoors to decorate the house as you please. Flowers, birds, gardens, big bright sun motifs all look great.
