70birds
That Nest in Birdhouses70birds
That Nest in BirdhousesPut the right nest boxes in the right place.
Keep nest boxes clean.
Protect birds from pests and predators.
Some bird species are more easily attracted to bird houses than other bird species.
Nest boxes simulate tree cavities.
Some birds that nest in tree cavities will also nest inside wood nest boxes if they are the right size.
Some birds that nest on tree branches, cliffs, and rock ledges will also nest on wood platforms.
Birds like birdhouses to be in their favorite places.
Too many bird houses can drive off nesting birds, including a specific bird species we want to attract.
For most yards, select just one or two bird species that are known to nest in bird houses in that region.
Wear Eye Protection!
Eye injuries are the most common serious injury and the most easily prevented.
You shouldn’t have to pay for any wood if you keep your eyes peeled. Watch for wood scrap piles at fence and home construction sites. These are good sources for the small sizes usually needed for bird houses.
3/4″ wood stock is the most common. 5/8″ stock where called for can be supplied with fencing material from most lumberyards. 5/8″ stock is used on the smaller nest boxes because 3/4″ stock is too thick and makes them look odd.
Use softwood. Cedar is beautiful, easy to work with, is often rough-cut, or simulated so for fencing, which is good for grip, and it endures. When fresh, it has a repellent effect on some insect pests. Pine is also a good, abundant softwood.
Hardwoods are difficult to work with, heavier and more suited to fine joinery used in furniture. It’s more work and not necessary.
Mountain Bluebird
Sialia currucoides
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Turdidae
Genus: Sialia
Species: currucoides
La. passer sparrow, small bird
La. forma form, kind, species
La. turdus a thrush
La. -idae appearance, resemblance
Gr. sialis a kind of bird
La. curruca a bird in writings by Juvenal
Gr. eidos -oid, -oides, form, likeness
About six or seven inches long. Blue head, neck, back, rump and tail (lighter blue than the other bluebirds.) Grayish white underside. Black bill and eyes.

Mountain bluebirds inhabit the Rocky Mountains and higher elevated plains throughout most of western North America from southern Alaska, the Yukon, above Alberta in the Northwest Territories around the Great Slave Lake area, as far east as Manitoba, south to northern Mexico, overlapping both the Western and Eastern Bluebird ranges. They migrate to and within the U.S. and Mexico.
Mountain bluebirds forage for insects near to or on the ground, usually watching from a perch, sometimes hovering. They eat beetles, spiders, moths, crickets, caterpillars and other available insects and their larvae and wild berries (especially sumac) and other fruits and seeds from plants, shrubs and trees.
Feed bluebirds mealworms, suet, peanuts, seeds, grapes, raisins and other fruits.
Attract bluebirds. Plant any of sumac, mountain ash, blackberry, red cedar, choke cherry, cranberry bush, Virginia creeper, dogwood, elderberry, euonymus, hackberry, holly, huckleberry, juneberry, juniper, mulberry, pokeberry, raspberry and strawberry.
Mountain bluebirds build nests of grass and the shredded inner bark of cedar trees in natural or abandoned tree and post hollows, cliff crevices, abandoned mines, barns, cabins, odd building nooks and crannies, and birdhouses
Females lay three to seven greenish blue eggs which hatch after about two weeks incubation and young leave the nest in about another three weeks.
Mountain Bluebird Birdhouse
The Mountain Bluebird Birdhouse (same as for the western bluebird), has a 5″ by 5″ floor, 12″ inside floor to ceiling and a 1 9/16″ diameter entrance hole located 10″ above the floor and ventilation openings.
Use wood stock rough cut on both sides. Assemble with corrosion resistant screws fit to pre-drilled countersunk pilot holes to reduce splitting wood.
Mount mountain bluebird houses 3′ – 6′ high on posts in woodland clearings, shelter belt edges bordering fields, among scattered trees, or pasture fence lines about 300 yards from other bluebird houses. Avoid constant shade, but also avoid direct sunlight through the entrance if possible.
On fence lines mount houses on the sides of posts facing the next post. The recessed position helps avoid cattle or other large animals that like to rub against them.
This birdhouse will also accommodate eastern bluebirds and may be useful in areas where the mountain and eastern bluebird ranges overlap, in the western portions of the Dakotas and the border area between southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Tree swallows occupying houses in the vicinity of bluebird houses will help provide protection from sparrows and starlings.
If bluebirds and tree swallows fight over boxes don’t interfere. Once they establish their claims, they mind their own broods and the swallows deter the more problematic house sparrows. Provide boxes for both within 15′ of each other. Other bluebirds will not nest in the second one making it available for tree swallows. Some have attracted a pair of each species with a tree swallow box and a bluebird box mounted on the same post.
Tree & Violet Green Swallow Birdhouse
The tree & violet-green swallow birdhouse has a 5″ by 5″ floor, 8″ inside floor to ceiling and a 1 1/2″ diameter entrance hole located 6″ above the floor.
Mount tree swallow houses between four and twenty feet high with partial sun and shade on tree trunks or posts, or hang from tree branches or under eaves.
Monitor the boxes for unwanted squatters. Deter predators with steel posts or sheet metal wrapped around wood posts.
Remove the nest and clean the box after the brood rearing seasons are over.
Flycatchers, chickadees, titmice, wrens, nuthatches and woodpeckers may also use these boxes.
Mountain Bluebird
Sialia currucoides
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Turdidae
Genus: Sialia
Species: currucoides
La. passer sparrow, small bird
La. forma form, kind, species
La. turdus a thrush
La. -idae appearance, resemblance
Gr. sialis a kind of bird
La. curruca a bird in writings by Juvenal
Gr. eidos -oid, -oides, form, likeness
About six or seven inches long. Blue head, neck, back, rump and tail (lighter blue than the other bluebirds.) Grayish white underside. Black bill and eyes.

Mountain bluebirds inhabit the Rocky Mountains and higher elevated plains throughout most of western North America from southern Alaska, the Yukon, above Alberta in the Northwest Territories around the Great Slave Lake area, as far east as Manitoba, south to northern Mexico, overlapping both the Western and Eastern Bluebird ranges. They migrate to and within the U.S. and Mexico.
Mountain bluebirds forage for insects near to or on the ground, usually watching from a perch, sometimes hovering. They eat beetles, spiders, moths, crickets, caterpillars and other available insects and their larvae and wild berries (especially sumac) and other fruits and seeds from plants, shrubs and trees.
Feed bluebirds mealworms, suet, peanuts, seeds, grapes, raisins and other fruits.
Attract bluebirds. Plant any of sumac, mountain ash, blackberry, red cedar, choke cherry, cranberry bush, Virginia creeper, dogwood, elderberry, euonymus, hackberry, holly, huckleberry, juneberry, juniper, mulberry, pokeberry, raspberry and strawberry.
Mountain bluebirds build nests of grass and the shredded inner bark of cedar trees in natural or abandoned tree and post hollows, cliff crevices, abandoned mines, barns, cabins, odd building nooks and crannies, and birdhouses
Females lay three to seven greenish blue eggs which hatch after about two weeks incubation and young leave the nest in about another three weeks.
Mountain Bluebird Birdhouse
The Mountain Bluebird Birdhouse (same as for the western bluebird), has a 5″ by 5″ floor, 12″ inside floor to ceiling and a 1 9/16″ diameter entrance hole located 10″ above the floor and ventilation openings.
Use wood stock rough cut on both sides. Assemble with corrosion resistant screws fit to pre-drilled countersunk pilot holes to reduce splitting wood.
Mount mountain bluebird houses 3′ – 6′ high on posts in woodland clearings, shelter belt edges bordering fields, among scattered trees, or pasture fence lines about 300 yards from other bluebird houses. Avoid constant shade, but also avoid direct sunlight through the entrance if possible.
On fence lines mount houses on the sides of posts facing the next post. The recessed position helps avoid cattle or other large animals that like to rub against them.
This birdhouse will also accommodate eastern bluebirds and may be useful in areas where the mountain and eastern bluebird ranges overlap, in the western portions of the Dakotas and the border area between southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Tree swallows occupying houses in the vicinity of bluebird houses will help provide protection from sparrows and starlings.
If bluebirds and tree swallows fight over boxes don’t interfere. Once they establish their claims, they mind their own broods and the swallows deter the more problematic house sparrows. Provide boxes for both within 15′ of each other. Other bluebirds will not nest in the second one making it available for tree swallows. Some have attracted a pair of each species with a tree swallow box and a bluebird box mounted on the same post.
Tree & Violet Green Swallow Birdhouse
The tree & violet-green swallow birdhouse has a 5″ by 5″ floor, 8″ inside floor to ceiling and a 1 1/2″ diameter entrance hole located 6″ above the floor.
Mount tree swallow houses between four and twenty feet high with partial sun and shade on tree trunks or posts, or hang from tree branches or under eaves.
Monitor the boxes for unwanted squatters. Deter predators with steel posts or sheet metal wrapped around wood posts.
Remove the nest and clean the box after the brood rearing seasons are over.
Flycatchers, chickadees, titmice, wrens, nuthatches and woodpeckers may also use these boxes.
Western Bluebird
Birds | Birdhouses | Plans | Home
Sialia currucoides
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Turdidae
Genus: Sialia
Species: currucoides
La. passer sparrow, small bird
La. forma form, kind, species
La. turdus a thrush
La. -idae appearance, resemblance
Gr. sialis a kind of bird
La. curruca a bird in writings by Juvenal
Gr. eidos -oid, -oides, form, likeness
About six or seven inches long. Blue head, neck, back, rump and tail (lighter blue than the other bluebirds.) Grayish white underside. Black bill and eyes.

Mountain bluebirds inhabit the Rocky Mountains and higher elevated plains throughout most of western North America from southern Alaska, the Yukon, above Alberta in the Northwest Territories around the Great Slave Lake area, as far east as Manitoba, south to northern Mexico, overlapping both the Western and Eastern Bluebird ranges. They migrate to and within the U.S. and Mexico.
Mountain bluebirds forage for insects near to or on the ground, usually watching from a perch, sometimes hovering. They eat beetles, spiders, moths, crickets, caterpillars and other available insects and their larvae and wild berries (especially sumac) and other fruits and seeds from plants, shrubs and trees.
Feed bluebirds mealworms, suet, peanuts, seeds, grapes, raisins and other fruits.
Attract bluebirds. Plant any of sumac, mountain ash, blackberry, red cedar, choke cherry, cranberry bush, Virginia creeper, dogwood, elderberry, euonymus, hackberry, holly, huckleberry, juneberry, juniper, mulberry, pokeberry, raspberry and strawberry.
Mountain bluebirds build nests of grass and the shredded inner bark of cedar trees in natural or abandoned tree and post hollows, cliff crevices, abandoned mines, barns, cabins, odd building nooks and crannies, and birdhouses
Females lay three to seven greenish blue eggs which hatch after about two weeks incubation and young leave the nest in about another three weeks.
Mountain Bluebird Birdhouse
The Mountain Bluebird Birdhouse (same as for the western bluebird), has a 5″ by 5″ floor, 12″ inside floor to ceiling and a 1 9/16″ diameter entrance hole located 10″ above the floor and ventilation openings.
Use wood stock rough cut on both sides. Assemble with corrosion resistant screws fit to pre-drilled countersunk pilot holes to reduce splitting wood.
Install mountain bluebird houses 3′ – 6′ high on posts in woodland clearings, shelter belt edges bordering fields, among scattered trees, or pasture fence lines about 300 yards from other western bluebird houses.
On fence lines mount houses on the sides of posts facing the next post.
The recessed position helps avoid cattle or other large animals that like to rub against them.
Avoid constant shade, but also avoid direct sunlight through the entrance if possible.
This birdhouse will also accommodate eastern bluebirds and may be useful in areas where the mountain and eastern bluebird ranges overlap, in the western portions of the Dakotas and the border area between southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Tree swallows occupying houses in the vicinity of bluebird houses will help provide protection from sparrows and starlings.
If bluebirds and tree swallows fight over boxes don’t interfere. Once they establish their claims, they mind their own broods and the swallows deter the more problematic house sparrows. Provide boxes for both within 15′ of each other.
Other bluebirds will not nest in the second one making it available for tree swallows. Some have attracted a pair of each species with a tree swallow box and a bluebird box mounted on the same post.
Tree & Violet Green Swallow Birdhouse
The tree & violet-green swallow birdhouse has a 5″ by 5″ floor, 8″ inside floor to ceiling and a 1 1/2″ diameter entrance hole located 6″ above the floor.
Mount tree swallow houses between four and twenty feet high with partial sun and shade on tree trunks or posts, or hang from tree branches or under eaves.
Monitor the boxes for unwanted squatters. Deter predators with steel posts or sheet metal wrapped around wood posts.
Remove the nest and clean the box after the brood rearing seasons are over.
Flycatchers, chickadees, titmice, wrens, nuthatches and woodpeckers may also use these boxes.
Birds | Birdhouses | Plans | Home