Animal House

No, it's not the classic John Belushi movie we're talking about today.  Rather the it is literal animal homes about which this post is.  The weather is warming.  The days are lengthening.  The birds are singing.  Yes, singing birds.  Most of the time singing birds means breeding birds and songbirds utilize nests.  Many birds, especially cavity-nesting species, utilize man-made birdhouses and here at the DomEc homestead we will be installing several such homes in hopes of aiding nesting and successful breeding this spring.

Wren/Chickadee house [front], screech-owl/kestrel box [rear], and bat house [right].

We've got three homes to be installed.  The first is a classic "birdhouse" designed for small songbirds, specifically chickadees or House Wrens.  Now would be the time to deploy the house for Black-capped Chickadees.  Resident species like chickadees, cardinals, titmice, and other tend to nest earlier in the year than migrants.  But since I would prefer to try for a House Wren I am going to delay positioning of the house until April; a week or two before the House Wrens arrive at this latitude.  I very much enjoy the incessant singing of the House Wren.

Next up is the most exciting of the three projects for me--a screech-owl box!  In this box we hope to host Eastern Screech-owl.  We have the species in the area and have seen them hunting the area and vocalizing several times.  These owls, like many owls, in natural circumstances would nest in an old woodpecker cavity or some other void in a tree.  For this reason it is often beneficial to include some small wood chips in the bottom of the box.  The same is true for American Kestrel, a falcon species of open area which this box might also host.  Years ago I did some work with a kestrel breeding program and we would add wood chips to the boxes during the spring clean-out to prepare the boxes for the new breeding season.

It it worth noting that quality nest boxes do not have perches.  Native cavity-nesters are accustom to entering tree hollows without the aid of a perch.  Not only are the decorative perches on many less-functional birdhouses unneeded, but they also aid predators and aggressive species in entering the nest either to prey on chicks or eggs or to start nests of their own.  These might include squirrels, House Sparrows, European Starlings, and others.

Last up is not a bird house at all.  Rather, the last box is a bat house.  These homes are not homes so much as communal roosts.  Bats populations in the eastern United States have declined sharply lately as a result of an infection caused by Pseudogymnoascus destructans.  This fungus causes the fatal White-nose Syndrome and is spread between bats roosting together during the winter and can kill whole colonies.  For this reason bats need all the assistance they can get.  Providing roosts like this one will give them an easier time finding safe shelter and a better foothold (literally and figuratively) in more areas.  A nice benefit is that bats also eat loads of mosquitoes.  If mosquito numbers are ruining your backyard BBQs, consider hosting some bats instead of spraying poisons.  In the long run it will be healthier for you and the bats (not to mention plenty of other native insects).

We'll keep our readers updated on the progress of nesting once the boxes are mounted.  Look for updates as spring progresses.