Bluebird Bungalows
Young author built 100 cardboard homes for bluebirds to help the species survive for Eagle Scout project.
March/April 1987
By Mike Matthews
MOTHER knows that many youths undertake interesting, original projects and also start their own small businesses. To support these endeavors, we buy and publish well-written articles from children and teenagers concerning their efforts. However, we recommend that all young authors query (that is, send us a letter telling about the story they'd like to do) before writing a full article. Send your queries to MOTHER's Children, MOTHER EARTH NEWS, P. O. Box 70, Hendersonville, NC 28793.
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"You're going to make and put up 100 bluebird houses?" my dad asked. "Sure you aren't biting off more than you can chew?" I'd been reading about how the number of eastern bluebirds had dropped over the last 25 years—mostly because they didn't have enough good places to nest. So, as part of my community service requirement for the Eagle Scout award, I wanted to help these beautiful songbirds survive. And I figured I could get help from the other scouts in my troop. But Dad had a point. It had taken me a couple of hours (and cost me a couple of dollars for materials) to make just one regular wooden birdhouse. Multiply that by 100, and I was facing an overwhelming job. There was only one thing for me to do-invent a better bluebird house!
Home, Sweet Tube
To get some ideas, I called on Dr. Bill Fletcher, a retired local veterinarian who has been making birdhouses for over 50 years. One interesting house he had was made out of the thick cardboard that carpeting is rolled around. I liked that idea, and got several rolls from carpet stores (for free, when the owners learned about my project).
Using a table saw, we scouts cut each tube into two-foot lengths. We cut each of these sections in half at a 20° slant to make two tubular nest boxes with straight bottoms and slanting tops.
Then, using an electric drill with a doorknob corer, we bored entry holes. To discourage other bird species from using the houses, we made the holes between 1'/a" and 13/a" in diameter and located them 1'/a" from the top edge of each tube at the front.
Next we drilled two small holes in the back of each house and threaded a wire loop through them for hanging the tube.
Not So Tickled Pink
Now we had to treat the cardboard tubes to keep rain from ruining them. Dr. Fletcher had dipped his birdhouses in exterior polyurethane varnish. His tubes were a lovely wood-colored brown, but polyurethane is expensive. So I decided to paint our houses and asked the manager of a local building supply store if he would donate some paint to our project. I was so pleased when he did that I didn't even worry about the color of the paint he gave me... until I got home and found out that it was pink!
I got a lot of good-natured grumbling from my scout friends about that, especially after their hands and clothes got pink from giving all those tubes two coats of paint. (The tubes eventually weathered to a nice salmony color.) We hung them from my mom's clothesline to dry.
