How to attract · guide

How to Attract Birds to a Birdhouse

How to attract birds to a birdhouse is mostly about building and mounting it right: NestWatch's checklist is untreated wood, thick walls, drainage and ventilation holes, an extended sloped roof, rough interior walls, no outside perch, a predator guard, and a metal pole ⁴.

Box specifications are NestWatch's ⁴; species tips are from All About Birds for chickadees and titmice ⁵⁶ and NestWatch for bluebirds ⁷; safety rules from FeederWatch and All About Birds ¹².

Wooden nest box mounted on a pole — how to attract birds to a birdhouse depends on build, hole size and a predator guard — Photo: USFWS Mountain Prairie, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

How to attract birds to a birdhouse: build it to the checklist

Use untreated, unpainted wood — cedar, pine or cypress — with galvanized screws rather than nails, walls at least ¾ inch thick to insulate the nest, and a sloped roof that overhangs the front by 2–4 inches and the sides by 2 ⁴. Add at least four drainage holes of ⅜ to ½ inch in the floor, recess the floor ¼ inch, and cut two ⅝-inch ventilation holes near the top of each side wall ⁴. Roughen the interior wall below the entrance so nestlings can climb out, and give the box a hinged side with a latch for monitoring and cleaning ⁴.

Leave off the perch: it is unnecessary for the birds and can help predators gain access ⁴. Size the hole for the bird you want — 1 9/16 inches is the smallest a European Starling fits through and 1¼ inches the smallest a House Sparrow fits, so go smaller to exclude them ⁴.

Birdhouse mounting, predators and which birds use it

Mount the box on a metal pole with a baffle — a cone baffle about 3 feet across, or a stovepipe baffle 8 inches in diameter and 24–36 inches long — rather than on a tree or fence post; raccoons remember box locations year to year, chipmunks compete for boxes, snakes climb unguarded poles, and cats leap to box tops from nearby trees ⁴. Keep boxes away from brush piles ⁴.

Then match the bird. Black-capped Chickadees take a box put up well before the breeding season, with a predator guard, filled with sawdust or wood shavings they can excavate, at least 60 feet into woodland to keep House Wrens out ⁵. Tufted Titmice cannot dig their own cavity and readily use a box with a predator guard ⁶. Eastern Bluebirds take a box built to NestWatch's bluebird plan — 5½ by 5½ inches inside, 9 inches deep, with the entrance size the plan specifies — mounted 4–6 feet up, facing east toward open habitat, boxes 300 feet apart, cleaned out as soon as a brood fledges ⁷.

Keep the birds you attract safe: windows, cats, clean feeders

Window collisions kill perhaps a billion or more birds a year in North America, and far more die at homes and low-rise buildings than at high-rises simply because there are so many of them ². Older rules about safe feeder-to-window distances are no longer thought valid; the fix is to make the glass visible — markings spaced no more than 2 inches apart on the outside, exterior screens, or hanging cords ¹².

Cats are the most numerous pet in North America and kill hundreds of millions of birds each year; ground-feeding birds, ground-nesting birds and fledglings are at greatest risk, and feeder birds are easy prey, so FeederWatch strongly recommends keeping cats indoors ¹. Clean seed and suet feeders every week or two — more often in heavy use or wet weather — with warm water and dish soap, since leftover seed and hulls harbor pathogens ¹.

More attraction guides

Attract birds to your yard →Attract birds to a feeder →Attract birds to a new feeder →Attract birds to a bird bath →Attract birds without a feeder →Bird calls to attract birds →Attract birds to your hand →Attract birds in winter →Balcony birding →Birds that eat yard pests →How to attract american goldfinches →How to attract northern cardinals →How to attract black-capped chickadees →How to attract ruby-throated hummingbirds →How to attract baltimore orioles →How to attract bluebirds →All guides →

Frequently asked questions

Why won't birds use my birdhouse?

Usually a perch, a wrong-sized hole, a tree mount predators can climb, or a box put up too late; NestWatch's checklist fixes each ⁴.

Which way should a birdhouse face?

For bluebirds NestWatch says east, toward open habitat; for most boxes, away from prevailing wind and driving rain ⁴⁷.