Our Bird Home

If you find that your backyard or porch is missing a little flair, you may want to think of putting up a rustic wooden bird house. Attractive to our winged friends and aesthetically pleasing to the human eye, birdhouses are a great way to add some traditional décor to your home without having to make any big changes.

Simple placement close to your door or purchasing a freestanding birdhouse brings a fuller, homey feel to your domain. Even if you never attract any avian friends, the birdhouse will still serve as a year-round garden decoration. But who knows? You may even get a bird or two to drop by for a visit.

For many people, landscaping and bird watching go hand in hand. Attract wild birds into your backyard or garden by installing wooden birdhouses on your land. You can make them yourself, or buy an easy-to-assemble kit. Some wooden birdhouses can also be bought ready-made.

Wake up each morning to cheerful chirps from your garden. Offer shelter to beautiful winged creatures so they are motivated to visit. Rustic wooden birdhouses are easy to make, assemble or put up. They are great resting spots for wild birds that are looking for places to stay. Birdhouses are functional décor that make nice additions to any yard.

Whether it’s for you or someone else, birdhouses make great gifts. They’re the perfect accent to any home and provide years of relaxing bird watching. For a house, an apartment or even an office, a rustic birdhouse also adds that down-home charm of a traditional homestead. Just because you live in the city doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the wildlife!

You can find birdhouses that are affordable at several locations on the internet. Even discount stores frequently charge 2-3 times the internet price for a birdhouse that is probably of lesser quality. Even after shipping, the money I save makes it more than worth it and the quality is something I know I can depend on.

The winter bird count is one of the marquee events for our local Audubon Society chapter. It doesn’t draw as many participants as the summer count, nor does is it as highly anticipated as the potluck dinners, but the winter count provides local bird watchers with hard data about nearby bird populations. Early in December, I and other amateur ornithologists leave our warm, cozy households and venture out into the snow.

We might take a quick glance at the rustic bird houses hanging in the yard to see if any birds are hiding inside, out of the harsh elements. The key is to spread out, with every bird watcher driving to a different part of the neighborhood and making a tally of each unique species encountered. At the end we make a master list of all the birds that have been counted and compare it to previous years.

Have you ever wondered what started people being interested in birdhouses in their yards? Where did the idea come from? After all, birds have been doing this for a long time. It is believed that one reason is that people just wanted to attract more birds. In fact this has been a popular activity since the days of tribal settlements in North America.

The native American tribes used to hang hollow gourds for purple martins to come and nest in. These purple martins kept away turkey vultures which would raid their meat racks. Rustic birdhouses and gourds developed into decorative birdhouses by bird lovers and birdwatchers that you see today. Include your comment about what you know about early birdhouses.

You chose to live outside the city for a reason. Maybe you wanted an alternative to the fast-paced urban lifestyle, or perhaps you wanted to dwell in the wilderness among scenic flora and fauna. Either way, you’ll want your exterior décor to convey a woodsy getaway aesthetic. Look for items that feature complementary colors and do not draw too much attention away from the home itself.

A rustic wooden birdhouse, for instance, can be attached to a tree or affixed to a porch railing. These items blend in so well with their surroundings that birds are naturally inclined to nest inside. You’ll be able to view the flurry of activity as birds enter and leave the birdhouse during the day. Visitors to your home are certain to compliment your design savvy as well.

The types of birdhouses we place in our backyard are not only for the birds. They are also for us. They are, after all, a part of our outdoor décor scheme, and as such, we must enjoy the look of them too. But we shouldn’t sacrifice practicality for looks. The number one priority of a bird house will always be to attract the greatest number of birds to our yards. So remember to keep the aesthetics as a secondary concern.

One way that many people get the best of both of these worlds is with rustic birdhouses. Almost exclusively made of wood and often resembling a log cabin, these birdhouses are definitely a favorite of many different kinds of birds. But they also blend seamlessly into your outdoor décor. Looking natural, many people prefer the look of these houses to the more ornate or decorative birdhouses which are overtly crafted by man.