can anyone explain

[MarkSingleton]

bird houses?

I have never been able to figure out why a bird would need a human to build them a house. Never saw a bird in one or around one other than to sit on top of it briefly and then make a "deposit" before flying off.

No, I have no interest in building one. At all.

Thoughts?

[Scoony]

To keep them from building a nest in my grill.

[Mags®]

Well down here we build bird houses to attract purple martins. Purple martins eat mosquitoes. We have plenty of mosquitoes that we want gone. Is that a good enough reason?

[JR1]

Because birds have no income so the birdhouse builders get a chapter 7 housing subsidy

[Admiral]

So you can watch them, and protect the young from predators.

[petertay15]

Can't explain it, but they have to be a specific size and shape to attract a specific variety. It is a pleasure to watch the birds build nests and raise the young. When we put up to wren houses, within days the wrens had moved in. When we put up bluebird houses, they too built nests.

Of course, you have to have those varieties living there already. We would not attract wood ducks or purple martins, because they don't live here. And of course, you have to have the birdhouses up in the spring when they are nesting.

Another interesting thing: we hung a thistle feeder for the gold finches, and they (after a few weeks) flock to it. We hung a hummingbird feeder, and the hummingbirds buzz around it all day, scaring each other away from the easy food source.

However it works, the ornithologists have figured out what size of birdhouse, with the right size entrance hole, to attract specific birds. But what makes me MAD is the woodpeckers drilling into the woodshop! I plug up the hole and they make another right next to it. I scare them away, I have shot several, and this week I have two new holes through the wall and into the foam insulation.

[Phil S.]

I'd guess that most people who build bird houses do so because they like to watch them and have them around their yards. My folks had several bird houses around their place, mostly for wrens and robins, and a martin house by their lake cabin. It was fun to watch them raise their young and listen to them sing. Birds did alright for thousands of years before anyone thought about building a bird house so, no, they don't need them. People probably need bird houses more than the birds do.

[Lynden]

There used to be four undeveloped lots next to my property. Mice, gophers, lizards, etc. had the run of the vacant area. I had two owl boxes which were always occupied.

https://www.google.com/search?q=owl+hous...=owl+boxes

My sister has a hanging pot under the eave on her patio with donkey tail planted in it. Doves have made a nest in the pot more than once a year for many years. She enjoys watching all the activity.

[AHill]

Dogs survived years without dog houses, too. I suppose one motivation is to try and humanize animals we are attracted to. Bird houses also encourage nesting where you want them vs. letting them choose just any old nesting site. This past summer I had a pigeon nest in a citronella candle on a cart on my back patio. That pigeon raised two sets of chicks before moving on.

[MichaelMouse]

A lot of egg clutches have been lost through the years due to less-than optimum choices. If you build and locate the house, you can build in safety from predators and competition, as well as good protection from weather and heat. Any number of places on the net will have the proper overall and entrance size for different species. Bluebirds don't want perches, and lack keeps others out. They also don't like other bluebirds in the neighborhood, so you build in pairs - one for the swallows who hate other swallows, one for the bluebirds.

Having nesting boxes and feeders is fun, even if you just watch them chewing the fat.