What You Need to Know when Choosing a Decorative Birdhouse

There are three types of birdhouses to consider when choosing a birdhouse for your backyard:

1. Fully Functioning Decorative birdhouse
2. Unique, Whimsical, or Themed birdhouse
3. Nesting Box birdhouse

If you want to add style to your backyard and encourage birds to nest. Then a Fully Functioning Decorative birdhouse is the right choice for you. These birdhouses attract cavity dwellers. The following features are essential when choosing your birdhouse:

• Good ventilation and drainage
• NO perch by the entrance because it encourages predators
• Roof that is slanted to shed rain and extends well over the entrance hole for protection from rain and sun.
• Has a door, roof, or side wall that can easily be opened to clean out the nest box.
• Keep in mind that some birds avoid bright colors because it makes them a target to predators

To ensure birds use your birdhouse the entrance hole size and the height of the birdhouse needs to be considered. Following are the entrance hole sizes and heights off the ground for cavity dwellers that commonly use birdhouses:

• Eastern Bluebird
  1 1/2" hole, 5-20 feet above the ground
• Chickadee
  1 1/2", 5-8 feet
• Downy
  1 1/8", 6-15 feet
• Woodpecker
  1 1/4", 6-20 feet
• Flicker
  2 1/2", 6-22 feet
• House Wren
  1 1/4", 6-10 feet
• Nuthatch
  1 1/4", 12-20 feet
• Screech Owl
  3", 10-30 feet
• Titmice
  1 1/4", 6-15 feet

One last note is that birds are territorial, so you should put up only one birdhouse in your backyard. Get more information on protecting your birdhouse from predators.

If you don’t care whether a bird every uses your birdhouse, then you may want to choose a Unique Birdhouse. This option gives you a lot of freedom. You can pick designs that work well with your outdoor decor or designs that are just fun. You are buying the birdhouse for you, not the birds.

You can put it wherever you want because you don't need to worry about predators. You can also have have as many birdhouses as you want. It doesn't matter if the decorative birdhouse is colorfully painted or wildly embellished. All you need to care about is your own personal style.

If you do not care what the birdhouse looks like and you want birds to use it, then a Nesting box birdhouses is the best choice for you. They are used for the sole purpose of providing birds with a home for their nest. These birdhouses are not particularly decorative because they are built to please the birds. They are usually made of plain wood, have ventilation holes, do not have a perch or post in front, and have a wall that opens on a hinge for ease of cleaning each season. In addition, you will want to research any specific requirements of the type of birds in your area.

If you are interested in increasing the wild life in your backyard you should get a fully functioning decorative birdhouse or nesting box birdhouse. If you want to add a decorative accent to your yard and a smile to your face, then a themed unique birdhouse is for you.

Get more information on cleaning your birdhouse

Share this: del.icio.us digg reddit