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David: Hi, I am David Epstein welcome to growing wisdom and I am here today with Susan Maranhao. We are talking birdhouses, as well as we have got a couple of other little side bars we are going to get off a bit. We are going to start with birdhouses. And, if I want to have birds come to my yard and live there, what do I need to know? There are a lot of different houses up there. You have got plenty of and platter up them up here. Some are really nice it is like different neighborhoods almost right?
Susan: Almost yes, what you are really going to be concerned about when looking for birdhouse whether it is fancy or plain, is you want to make sure it has the right size opening for the bird that you are trying to attract.
If you live in a wooded area you probably have a lot of chickities and rend and tip mice and nut hutches so you are going to look for a house that has an inch and a quarter opening. If you have a large field area with trees swells and blue birds you are going to want something that has an inch and a half opening.
You want to make sure it has a good daps in the hall to the floor in a descent size floor. But which you also want to make sure is that it has ventilation, you want the birds to be able o breath in there, there is ventilation generally under the roof and you also want to make sure it has some drainage holes in the bottom.
But, honestly the most important thing to look for in any birdhouse is can it be cleaned out. This one as you can see has a little hook on the side and all you do is you lift up the side you can take out the old nesting material, close it back up and the birds will use it again.
David: And how often do you do that?
Susan: If you keep your birdhouse as out year round, I will do it first thing in the spring, but do it after the first nesting cycle. Once the baby birds have left the nest they are not going back, clean it out. You could get a second bird nesting in your house.
David: What about water? I know they need water.
Susan: Water is critically important for two things, they need to drink but also they need to bathe. But what is really need about bird bathes is by putting one out. You can attract birds through your yard with water.
You cannot attract their food because all birds have to bathe and drink, but every bird has to eat that seed that you put out for them.
David: And what do you do in the winter about the bird bathes freezing?
Susan: Well, you can either buy a birdbath that has a deicer already built into it, or depending upon the material that your birdbath is made out of. You can actually put in an emersion deicer right into the birdbath.
David: Another backyard critter that I would like to attract are bats.
Susan: They are wonderful.
David: You have got this bat house here. So how does this work?
Susan: Bats really do sleep in a bat house. What they do is they are going to land in this landing pot and crawl up and in. And, as you can see it has a mesh and they are going to clean right to it.
David: And how many bats can go into a house?
Susan: This house will hold approximately 100 bats. Here in the Winton we got the little brown bat and big brown bat. And honestly a bat with its wings folded up is no larger than the size of the average human thumb.
David: And they eat a lot of mosquitoes.
Susan: They do eat a lot of mosquitoes. A little brown bat will eat approximately 600 mosquitoes in an hour.
David: Wow! So, we talked about houses for birds, and we have even talked a little bit a bout bats which is pretty interesting and they do eat a lot of mosquitoes. I appreciate you time. Thank you very much.
Susan: You are welcome.
David: And, thank you for coming to growing wisdom. Please be sure to check out our garden shutter section where you can ask any question about gardening, even birds we will get an answer for you in less than two days.
