Gourd Houses Update

By Eilene Lyon

Programming note: This will be my last post until November. I need to take a break from blogging for a while to complete some projects and take a vacation. Since I have over 500 posts in my archive, I’m going to schedule some of them for reblogging while I’m away. Feel free to comment. I will respond!

After blogging about my gourd birdhouse project, a number of people requested a post-breeding season update.

I finished painting the 4th gourd and gave it a heavy coating of varnish. It seems to have fared much better than my three original birdhouses. By the end of the season, those were all looking pretty beat up. I will re-do them. Note that I added a perch to the last one. The repainted gourds will also get perches next year.

Mr. House Wren showed up again this year and sang non-stop for what seemed like a month! He checked out a tree cavity that the violet-green swallows have been using for several years (the swallows used it again this year).

When I put out the new house, he promptly admired the nice perch and began stuffing it with twigs. He also stuffed the one he used last year with twigs. You can see from the header image that they are full and the other two gourds remained unused. He put so many sticks in these two that I had to wonder how a bird could even get inside!

Well, despite having the two most stylish nest sites this side of Wolf Creek Pass, Mr. Wren did not succeed in attracting a mate, just like last year. What is wrong with those gals?!