Part 5: Birds You Can Attract to Your Bird Houses and Nest Boxes

This is a continuing series on attracting birds to your yard.

Flycatchers

The great crested flycatcher and its western cousin, the ash-throated flycatcher, are common in wooded suburbs. Their natural nesting sites are abandoned woodpecker holes.  Flycatchers may nest in a birdhouse if it's placed about ten feet up in a tree in an orchard or at the edge of a field or stream. 

Woodpeckers

You can attract all kinds of woodpeckers with a suet feeder, but only the flicker and the red-bellied are likely to use  birdhouses. They prefer a box with roughened interior and a floor covered with a two-inch layer of wood chips or coarse sawdust. Flickers are especially attracted to birdhouses filled with sawdust, which they "excavate" to suit themselves.  For best results, place the box high up on a tree trunk exposed to direct sunlight. 

Owls

Most owls seldom build their own nests. Great horned and long-eared owls prefer abandoned crow and hawk nests. Other owls (barred, barn, saw-whet, boreal and screech) nest in tree cavities and birdhouses. 

Barn owls are best known for selecting nesting sites near farms. Where trees are sparse, these birds will nest in church steeples, silos, and barns. If you live near a farm or a golf course, try fastening a birdhouse about 15 feet up on a tree trunk. 

Screech owls prefer abandoned woodpecker holes at the edge of a field or neglected orchard. They will readily take to boxes lined with an inch or two of wood shavings. If you clean the birdhouse out in late spring after the young owls have left, you may attract a second tenant--a kestrel. Trees isolated from larger tracts of woods have less chance of squirrels taking over the birdhouse.  Check out the supply of birdhouses available at www.aboutbirdhouses.com.