Another Week, Another Storm | Week 4

Hello birders!

We are coming up on week 4, and I am sorry to say that the weather was not good enough for me to check boxes again. This week, I am going to use this space to give you all a preview of what to expect for next week (which I am hoping will go as planned).

Boxes
First, I wanted to show what a nest box looks like. Here’s a photo!

As you can see, this is the door side of one of my favorite boxes. Before my partner and I made new boxes, we used this box as a model because of how efficient it was and how lovely it was to work with. As you can see, the number on the box is the labeling system we use to keep track of all of our boxes. With 35 boxes to check, things can get confusing! So we simply use a sharpie to mark the outside of the box to let us know which box we’re checking. The most important part of this is the door mechanism. This door hinges at the bottom, and the hinge mechanism we use is two screws firmly inserted into the side of the bottom of the door panel. The top is not secure by anything except for that L-shaped screw you can see on the top. When the screw is faced to cover the door, it securely holds it. But when we twist it down, the door can easily be pulled down by its handle (the screw you see in the middle of the panel).

Above is the hole in the front panel of the boxes that the birds use to get into the box. Since they don’t have fingers and can’t open the side door like we can, we need to make sure that this hole is as pristine as possible so they’re comfortable in their home! This is actually an example of a damaged hole. It’s hard to tell, but a layer of wood around the hole is scratched up (probably the work of a woodpecker).

Nest and Eggs
Next, I am going to show what a nest and eggs look like. I won’t spend too much time on this just because I want to save it for next week when we (hopefully) see some eggs.

This is a view of how a nest and the eggs look from outside the box when I open it. Pretty cool!

A top-down view of the same exact nest as the photo before. Try to guess what bird this is!

These are my favorite eggs! Blue eggs for bluebirds. So cute!

See you next week! Hopefully with some eggs and nests.

P.S. I finally figured out how to add photos to these posts and I am so happy. I am the least tech savvy person on this planet and this took so long. Please appreciate the photos :’)