Birdhouse for a Nuthatch

A Birdhouse

For A Nuthatch

Deborah Henderson

Writing 1133

6 May 2011

Paper 2 – Final Draft

How to Build a Birdhouse for your Neighboring Nuthatches!!

You too can build your own birdhouse! This style of birdhouse is a fairly generic make and can be remodeled and expanded to fit almost any kind of bird. However, for the sake of simplicity, we will just be going over how to build a birdhouse for a Nuthatch here. This project usually takes about 2-3 hours, so be sure and make enough time to finish the whole thing!

To get started on this birdhouse you will need a few simple tools:

* A powered saw – I prefer the Black&Decker Cordless Handisaw

* Wood glue – Gorilla Glue works great

* ¾ inch long bullet head nails (24 – 30 should be enough)

* Hammer

* Wood Varnish – WATCO Clear Wood Finish is good

* Paintbrush

Now that you have all your tools, you just need your wood. Any strong wood about half an inch wide will work. Perhaps you have some old lumber in your backyard. The picture below shows different sizes of birdhouses if you wish to build one for something other than a Nuthatch. Choose the birdhouse you would like and measure it from the wood.

Let’s get to sawing!

You will need to saw the following:

* 1 Roof – 8” x 8”

* 1 Floor – 8” x 8”

* 4 Sides – 5” wide by 9” high

One of the sides will be the front panel. You will need to saw a hole about 3” from the top for the opening of the birdhouse. This hole needs to be about 1 ½ inches in diameter.

Now that you have all your pieces cut to size and ready to be assembled, let’s put them together. You will want to put the four walls of the house together first. Line them up so that they are even, and then put some wood glue where the pieces join together. This will help keep the rain out of the cracks so that the nuthatches do not get wet in their new home. After the wood glue has dried, hammer in 3-4 nails in each side to ensure that the pieces...