PVC Bird Houses

I've been constructing some PVC bird houses despite their cost. As you can see from the picture, I've chosen not to make entrance holes in some of them as I don't know where they are going to be placed. Most of the houses are using a 1/8" entrance hole for house wrens. The recessed floor is made from a piece of wood which is screwed into the PVC pipe. The "lid" is a PVC female adaptor that fits over the outside and a cleanout plug that can be unscrewed for maintennance. The screw eye is used along with wire to hang the house. The design details can be found in "Projects for the Birders Garden".

Birdhouse Construction

I've been busy creating birdhouses. I checked pricing on PVC and wood to see which would be the most cost efficient material for small-scale use. It seems to be about equal, unless one uses a PVC twist top as a cleanout which tend to push the cost a little higher.

I'm sure most people already own the tools to assemble birdhouses but I did not. Fortunately, the materials I needed were not expensive: 20$ for a low-end jigsaw, 10$ for a set of spade bits (to drill entrance holes), 6$ per 12" clamp (very nice to have for holding wood pieces together). The biggest surprise for me was the cost of screws! Granted it's still not much, but it seems like these little pieces of metal must involve a lot more engineering and machining than I had imagined.

As far as mounting options, I've found 7' poles at garden departments for around 10$, 6' "light duty" metal posts for around 5$, and wooden posts for free in neighborhood yards (it seems that people often pile unwanted wood and tree limbs near the street after a storm). For predator guards, I originally intended to use metal stovepipe. However, an inverted plastic bucket with the handle removed seems to be the winner in the low-cost department.

How I apply roundup

I recently needed to create a garden space from lawn. I purchased some roundup. I suppose the usual thing to do is buy an applicator. I've found this isn't required even if you wish to do large areas of lawn. From household supplies, I came up with a plastic bucket and an old, string-style mop. As long as there isn't dew still on the ground, it's very easy to see where I've "mopped" the lawn. The premixed solution was on discount, so I used this concentration. It seems to have killed the grass and weeds, at least for now.

Stump Baths

I decided to try out the stump, bird bath after reading NWF's Attracting Birds, Butterflies and Other Backyard Wildlife. I don't recommend trying to create the entire basin with a chisel though, unless you're really skilled with one. I ended up using a hatchet from Walmart (total cost was under 7$) to create the dimensions I wanted. I only used the chisel to create the sloping sides, making sure to leave them rough and not smooth for ease of climbing in and out.

Here's a picture of a test stump, this one was too small to use as standard bird bath dimensions seem to be 12"L x 3"D. As you can see the stumps I am using are somewhat cracked. I've patched any cracks that are near the basin with silicone sealer sold as safe for aquarium use. It's too soon to see how fast the cracks spread, and I'll also be curious to see if the silicone holds up outdoors where heating and cooling will test its durability. If it works great, if not, I'll stick some kind of a dish inside them and use ideally suited logs next time!

Today in the woods

White Tailed Deer and a skink

Weirdness

Here is a picture of a stinkhorn. It seems to have attracted several spore carriers.

KingFishers

Here are some kingfisher pictures. The top one is from the United States and the others are from Costa Rica. In Costa Rica, we found them during a boat tour at Tirimbina (low land rainforest with rivers). We were able to watch the birds go inside of the nest which was a hole in the stream bank. Here in the states, I usually notice them because they stand out as one person once said, "look at the diving blue jay", or I hear the rattle like call that is very distinctive. For a species that likes to perch in the open, you'd think I'd have better photos! Nonetheless, one of my favorite bird species to observe.

No more digital stealth cams for me

I've been able to test a low-end, digital stealth cam (Wildview 2MP) under a variety of conditions... The results are as follows: It works pretty well for me in daylight conditions, and the camera performs quite horribly after the sun goes down. Anything close to the camera after dark is so washed out it's not visible and anything in the background is almost colorless and distorted. In the dozen or so animals that should have been caught on film, none of them were really visible. The camera also appears to fire randomly both day and night, but the night pictures are so bad it's possible there is something there, who knows? It might be sort of ok for large animals that can be seen from a distance, but the camera is more or less useless for small mammals that need filmed at close range.

I don't like having to take the 35mm MC2 in for rewinding and paying for film development, but it's less expensive, and at least for me, takes a much, much higher quality photo. I've learned my lesson regarding cheapie digital cams, and there is no way I am leaving a 300$ item in a wood. 35mm processing fees for good quality photos and a 50$ device are still the best way to go for me.