Bluebird House From Scrap 2" X 6" Lumber

Bluebirds naturally nest in small cavities in trees. Since bluebirds can't make their own nesting cavities, they have to find an empty one in which to rear their young. There are only so many adequate tree cavities available, and competition from abundant non-native birds, such as house sparrows and European starlings, is intense. Therefore, well-designed bird houses make for great homes for bluebirds, and can help maintain or boost their populations. To build our bird houses we are modifying some plans from the Missouri Department of Conservation originally found online, but now apparently unavailable. They were similar to the "one board" nest box shown here:

https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP/Wildlife/Fact-Sheets/Eastern-Bluebird

The MDC instructions used 1" x 6" lumber, but we are using mostly 2" x 6" scrap wood that we obtained free from a construction site. The two most critical parts of any bird house are the internal volume and the size of the entrance hole. Since our wood is thicker, we have to modify the instructions so that the dimensions on the inside remain the same. If the inside of the box is too small then the birds will not use it. The 1.5" diameter entrance hole size is readily accepted by bluebirds, and excludes house sparrows and starlings. The purpose of this project was to utilize waste materials to benefit wildlife. Nearly all the materials were already on hand (such as screws and hinges) or leftovers (paint).

Tools

Table saw

Miter saw

Hole saw, 1 1/2" diameter

Electric drills with Phillip’s bit and drill bit

Sand paper

Pencil

Materials

2" x 6" lumber

1" x 4" lumber

Exterior paint and brushes

Deck Screws

Drywall screws

Cabinet hinges with screws

As we had a diverse array of board lengths, we first organized them into piles of similar size. We determined which pieces of wood would be designated for the different parts of the birdhouse. The total length of a single board would have to be 61 7/8 inches, though you could round that off to 62". The wood was marked for cutting (see figure). To make the sides, a piece of wood was marked with a pencil at 10.5’’ and 11.5’’, then a line was drawn connecting these two marks. The part of the birdhouse it was destined to become was written on the wood and lines drawn at the appropriate spots for each component. The volume of the nest box would have been too small if we had used 2x6s for the sides, so we found some 1" x 4" scraps to make into sides.

An electric table saw was used for cutting the larger rectangular pieces of wood, such as front, back, top and bottom of the birdhouse by using the fence to set the length. An electric compound miter saw was used for cutting angles in the pieces of wood designated for the sides of the birdhouse. We used a block clamped to the fence of the miter saw as a jig to set the length of board cut, as we had to cut many boards of the same dimensions.

We used a hole saw to drill a 1.5" diameter hole for the bird to enter (hole size specific to bluebirds) in the front board, centered 8" above the bottom.

We cut ¼” off the corners of the bottom board for drainage.

We drilled a hole into the top and bottom of the back board so that the bird house could later be attached to a post when deployed outdoors.

Using the miter saw, the top of the front board and the rear of the lid were beveled at 17 degrees to match the slope of the lid.

Holes were predrilled before driving 2 screws through the sides into the bottom.

We used 3 screws to attach the sides and bottom to the back of the board.

We used 3 screws to attach the front to the bottom and sides.

We screwed a cabinet hinge to the lid and the backboard.

We glued a wood strip (1/4" diameter dowel) under the hinge to prevent leakage of rainwater into the bird house.

One problem we encountered was desiring a means to keep the lid closed so that raccoons and other predators could not open the box. However, we did not want to simply screw the lid on, especially since we had a hinged lid. We used two screws and a thick piece of malleable wire. First we screwed a 1" or longer drywall or deck screw into the side of the lid and another below it in the side board of the box, both with about 1/2" remaining out. We wrapped one end of the wire around the lid screw. We closed the lid and bent the wire to hook around the other screw to hold it shut. We used aluminum wire, but thick copper, such as 10-gauge electrical wire, would work nearly as well. Steel was too stiff and hard to bend. The wire can be easily unbent by hand to open the lid as needed.

We sanded down the rough edges to remove splinters.

We applied exterior paint to the outside of the bird house, being sure to coat all wood exposed to the environment.

We ended up with 19 bird houses. Not bad for a bunch of scrap that was headed for the trash! This project was completed and the instructable mostly written by the 2017 QU Environmental Science class. The bird houses will be used in nesting studies by future classes. In earlier efforts using a different design, we made use of an artistically talented student to paint some nest boxes to sell as part of a fundraiser (see photo).