Vangarden Notes: For the Birds

Vangarden Notes: For the Birds

H. Bradford

3.31.17

I feel that I have not had time to pursue hobbies lately.   It seems that activism and work take up the lion’s share of my life.   To some degree, I’ve wanted to make time for more hobbies this month.  To this end, I decided that I was finally going to paint some bird houses.  With the spring migration underway, it seemed like the perfect time to spruce up some of the bird houses that Adam’s brother donated to us.  The bird houses are designed with bluebirds in mind, but according to the National Blue Bird Society the boxes may be used by chickadees, some species of wrens, nuthatches,  tree swallows, and house sparrows.  Last year, one of our boxes was used by a chickadee, which seems like the most likely candidate for nesting in our small, urban yard, which we call “The Vangarden.”

I spent a few evenings painting the boxes.  I am not great at using paint, but it was a fun little hobby project.  What’s more, it looks great to have our yard and house decorated with a half dozen bird houses.   Even if the birds don’t utilize them, I think it adds to the yard décor and communicates our hopes for a wildlife and community friendly yard.  We put the bird houses up in mid March, which I read is the recommended time of year for hanging bird houses in northern states.

Here are a few of the designs:

This is one of my favorite of the houses that I painted.  I had fun painting some cheerful sunflowers in a vaguely impressionistic style.  Although it looks pretty, I read that birds prefer more naturally colored bird houses.   Interestingly, birds see both the color spectrum that we see and the UV spectrum (well, birds of prey and nocturnal birds less so).  Birds that do not appear to have gender differences in plumage actually appear differently to birds, which can see plumage markings and colors that are invisible to us!  Thus, blue jays, crows, chickadees, and other similar looking birds actually look different (invisible sexual dimorphism) to the birds themselves.

Another bird house that I painted featured a moon stars, and the Northern Lights.  I actually tried to add some constellations to the box, but it is hard to tell since I added a lot of random dots as well.  I read that bird houses should not be painted dark colors because they can overheat.  But, our yard is very shady….especially the side of the house where this bird house was placed.  I am not too concerned that it will get too hot.

The above bird house was painted to look like a barn.  The white paint was a little bit drippy so it is not as tidy as I would have liked.

This birdhouse was made to look like a green colored house with birch trees and a conifer tree on the opposite side.

Finally, this bird house was made to look like a dark blue house.

Hopefully some birds use these houses this year!   The boxes have been hung on a few sides of the house.  Realistically, they are not spaced far enough apart or covered enough to be ideal nesting sites.  For instance, Black capped chickadees prefer to nest at least 650 feet away from each other.  Nuthatches prefer one box per 6 acres!  Two of the boxes where placed on the front side of the house, where there is a spruce tree and shaggy boxwood bush…but also a busy street.  Our yard is pretty small, so there are not ample choices of where to hang the boxes.  However, perhaps if we obtain others we can consider this an experiment.  Which boxes will get used?  What area of our yard is favored by birds?  Will we attract any other species of nesting birds (other than the chickadee last year)?  Whatever the outcome of our project, it is fun to paint the houses as a hobby and a nice way to decorate our yard.