Note that the plan calls for nailing a 3/4-inch strip onto the boards which are the ends of the house. This makes the 11 1/2-inch lumber the full 12 1/4 inches necessary to make the rooms 6 x 6 inches. Any less space per room will discourage martins and encourage sparrows.

Watch where you place your nails, as you will want to saw the dados (grooves) and roof pitch after the strips are added. Because of its nail-holding ability, solid lumber rather than plywood works best for the ends. Drive l-inch brads on each side of the room dividers to hold them in place. Leave the brads extended 1/4 inch above and below the ceiling/floor panel. If you don’t have a table saw to make the dado cuts, you can nail two 1/2-23/4-inch strips of 1/4-inch plywood to the inside ends to form the grooves. In this plan, a l-inch space is allowed in the attic for insulation.

A l-inch Styrofoam panel provides the best insulation, but a few sheets of newspaper sandwiched between sheets of corrugated cardboard works well, too. The vent holes in the ends can be 3/8-5/8 inch in diameter. Note that the front pieces are cut 1/4 inch short in height. This, too, allows for attic ventilation and makes it possible to remove these fronts to clean the boxes. Use a 3/8-inch dowel for the roof perch. You may shingle the roof, but this is not necessary. Paint the whole house white.

Do not stain or paint the house dark colors. Holes should be at least 2 inches in diameter; 2 1 /4 1/2 inches is suggested. Rectangular holes 2 x 3 inches (high) are also suitable.

Just follow these instructions for bird house patterns & you’ll have no trouble

Installation

Erect the house on a pole or pipe 12 to 18 feet high in an open area away from trees. This house is light enough to mount on telescoping poles which are commercially available. This allows cleaning. Have your martin house built by April 15 and preferably by March 25. Holes may be blocked with strips of wood in the fall and winter to keep out starlings and sparrows. Clean out old nests in September, or at the latest in October. You may want to locate it close by any style of unique bird feeders that you may have installed.

Biology

Martins usually lay four or five eggs. Incubation is about two weeks, and age to first flight is about four weeks. Martins build only one nest per year, but they may renest if the first attempt is an early failure. After flight, martins will return to the house for about two weeks to roost and perch. Martins feed on the wing and eat a variety of flying insects, including flies, beetles, moths and cicadas. They wont decimate bee hives. Scouts-mature males-may arrive in late March. After aggregating in large flocks in late summer, they depart for wintering grounds in South America during late August and early September.

Comment

Martins are sometimes difficult to attract, but it’s easier if you have some well constructed purple martin bird houses in place. Well-shaded lawns with big trees are poor habitats. It may take a year or two to attract martins to a new house; don’t get discouraged. If after two years you are still unsuccessful, try moving the house to a different location-sometimes 25 feet can make a difference. Don’t expect a nest in every room. Four nesting pairs in a 12-room house is good occupancy. Extra rooms are used for roosting and for young, preflight birds. Also, sparrows will likely fill a empty areas. Before the martins are nesting, leave the sparrow nests alone to avoid disturbing the martins.

There are a myriad of bird houses,something to appeal to every bird lover. Bird enthusiasts like to put up bird houses to entice birds to live on their property. To get birds to take up residence, bird lovers will build bird houses, fix up bird baths, and hang up bird feeders in order to attract feathered friends. Of all the kinds of bird houses, it appears that the nautical birdhouse is by far the most common.

Definition Of A Marine Bird House

Usually, those who are not bird enthusiasts, think a bird house would be a square box with a roof. They think the houses would be made of scraps of lumber and nailed on a crooked fence post. However, people who love birds are aware there is a wide range of possibilities when it comes to picking a birdhouse and a nautical bird house seems to consistently be the most popular.

 The uninitiated may think a nautical bird house is for pelicans or sea gulls. Of course those birds are too big. A marine bird house is built for song birds. Simply put a nautical bird house is built to resemble a nautical theme. Light houses are what a lot of nautical bird houses are designed to resemble. Of the huge variety of shapes and sizes of bird houses, for instance log cabins,churches, fire stations, general store, and Victorian houses, for some reason the nautical theme seems to be the most popular.

Building A Nautical Bird House

Unfortunately the average person does not have the talent to construct a nautical bird house. It usually will take a skilled woodworker to construct the intricate design of a lighthouse. Perhaps you have the talent or just want to give it a go then invest the time finding the right design and have some fun. Otherwise it might be prudent to buy one already made. The main thing to be wary of when buying is to stay away from metal. The marine bird house like any other birdhouses should contain no metal.

How To Mount A Nautical Birdhouse

First consider the ideal placement of the nautical bird house, it should be out of reach of predators such as dogs or cats so they cannot eat the baby birds. Then in the fall, when the birds have migrated to a warmer place you have to take the house down, clean it out and store it inside. A lot of times when a person purchases a marine birdhouse that resembles a light house, they never plan to use it for birds but rather they will use it as an ornamental piece for inside the house.

As so many bird enthusiasts have found, you cannot go wrong with the nautical bird house theme. Uniqueness, beauty and function rolled into one comes in these beautiful creations.