BIRD BOX BUILDING

A LOW-KEY LOCKDOWN SUCCESS STORY

I don’t choose to make the Simple Shape site personal very often, but as the times are exceptional I’ve decided it’s entirely right to make an exception here too. We are a family of five. We have indoor space and outdoor space, we are lucky people. When lockdown started we seized the moment, made plans for how to spend the time, what projects we would do. Wow, we seriously started well. Then, some got the virus (it lasted for two long weeks), the 24-hour canteen opened, the secondary school home-learning deluge happened, scores were settled, tears were shed. I’d hate to give the false impression that we are ‘nailing’ lockdown life!

HOWEVER… … …

We had an early success. One so satisfying it’s worth sharing (it was never intended to be shared though so the pictures are very hit-and-miss). We decided to build some bird boxes for a Wren, a Robin and a Blackbird. I made the Wren box. I chose a simple plan from the internet, hacked it together (badly) with nails and wood glue and to be honest had more fun camo-painting it in acrylics.

We hung it (badly) in our apple tree. AND THEN to my absolutely delight and amazement, a pair of Bluetits (who clearly hadn’t read the Wren specification small print) promptly moved in. Working an exhausting schedule, they carried in twigs, fluff, leaves and feathers and have (I think, although I dare not look inside) made themselves a little home. I am keeping a vigilant eye on the box and waiting anxiously to see what happens next.

I mentioned that we made three boxes, the largest (on the right of the picture below) is for a Blackbird, apparently. It drew a lot of ridicule from the family. We speculated that the plans were wrong, one of the kids asked if we thought an Emu would take up residence in that vast space. In the end it was put up too. And then…