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October 12, 2006  Scraping the Bottom I love building birdhouses. Whenever I spot a pile of old boards or thick plywood I cart them back home with the idea that sometime in the future I will turn them into homes for birds. Since I’ve often struggled to make birdhouses with poor tools and less than ideal working conditions, I welcome the chance to have access to a wood workshop. I have the use of such a facility now and I’ve carted over a pile of boards and plywood scraps in order to turn out a few more affordable bird dwellings. As much as I enjoy building birdhouses, I also love putting up birdhouses when spring rolls around. I like to watch the birds’ reactions as they investigate my creations. It makes me feel as though I’ve somehow relieved them of one of the great burdens of the whole nesting season by erecting a fresh new abode for their use. I enjoy helping birds, but do admit that there’s one part of the birdhouse business I’ve never been keen on - cleaning the houses after they’ve been used. I could make up a lot of excuses for being remiss in this department but it probably comes down to the actuality that cleaning birdhouses isn’t that much fun. I have instituted bird box changes that suggest my attitude toward cleaning them is shifting. As much as possible now, I construct birdhouses a hinged side or front flap to allow for easy cleaning. In cases where I could not incorporate a birdhouse flap, I’ve screwed the top down so there is a way into the box to clean it without taking the whole thing apart - or chucking it out, should it become that messy. So, what’s so important about cleaning birdhouses? Let me share a little episode that gave me a poignant lesson in the downside of not cleaning birdhouses. Last week while building birdhouses in the shop, I decided that if the weather turned cold I would do some birdhouse maintenance on some of the boxes I put up on the property this year. I decided to wait for cold weather before taking on the task because I believed that low temperatures would still any pests that lurked in the old nesting material. Cleaning out birdhouses is bad enough without inhaling all the vermin that a warm day might waft my way. Unfortunately the weather remained warm. Though night temperatures dropped to 5 below Celsius and colder, daytime temperatures rose quite high for October. So I waited. Spying a makeshift dog pooper-scooper hanging on the shop wall I decided that, in the lull created by the warm weather, I would create a similar device for cleaning birdhouses. I envisioned a long handled mini-rake with a metal blade that would precisely fit the inside width of the birdhouses I made for this spring. Cleaning would simply be a matter of opening the flap, inserting the rake against the back wall of the house, bringing it down to the floor, and then pulling forward. With one simple pull, all material would be whisked out of the box onto the ground. All this could take place while I stood a good distance away thanks to the long handle. With all this in mind I went to the nearest birdbox and measured it. The handle of my mini-rake was easy. A long piece of doweling brought from home, originally intended as part of a monstrous bird feeder (still under construction) would be ideal. All I had to do was make a cut into the wood and insert the metal blade. The metal blade was a piece of tin reinforced by bending it at the edges. That done I screwed it all into place. Upon looking at my creation I realized the handle was much too short. I placed the device on the wall outside next to the dog pooper-scooper and resumed my wait for cold weather. Unfortunately, the new mini-scraper called to me each time I passed and I began thinking that my insistence on having cold weather to clean by was overblown. Shortly after with the sun blazing down and the wind blowing, I gave in to temptation and plucked the scraper down from its nail. I unlatched the gate and marched to the nearest pasture where two birdhouses hung near each other separated by two fence posts. I checked the wind, pulled the nail restraining the flap and opened the first box. Inside was less than an inch of clean dry grass. I remembered this box! Swallows once tried to nest here but were repelled by Swallows that had taken up residence in the other pair of boxes. (Hanging two boxes near each other allows Swallows to claim one box and Bluebirds to claim the other.) Here was the perfect chance to try the custom-made scraper. I inserted the device and with a simple pull, spilled the bit of nesting material onto the ground. With this success I moved to the next box. I opened it and, as suspected, saw a slightly compacted but fully constructed used nest about 3 inches thick with a feather lining. I reached in with the scraper, extended my arm to its full length so I could back up a bit, checked the wind and pulled. The nest resisted a bit, but then slid out smoothly and fell into a heap on the ground. Odd bits of detritus swirled around the fallen nest and I backed further away. The device was performing nicely, I thought, though I could see where a stiffer blade might be in order - that and a much longer handle. Oh what the heck, so there were a few shortcomings; I just had to try one more nest box. I walked across the road to the nearest box in the east pasture. I opened the front of the box, inserted the mini-rake and pulled. The nest came out easily but not all of the contents. Inside, on the floor of the box was left a pile of black crumbly material. I moved forward to look. To my horror the black pile was seething. As far as I could make out they weren’t fleas, as such, but they were certainly alive, like black, shiny onion seeds, undulating or pulsing. Leaving the front flap of the box yawning in the bright sunlight, I retreated from the pasture, inspecting the handle of my rake as I walked back to the shop. The mini-rake now has a four-foot handle and I swear I will not do any more birdhouse cleaning until the temperature drops to minus 20 degrees Celsius! To e-mail Tom CLICK HERE To look at previous column CLICK HERE |
