There is great power in a birdhouse. It is an invitation to a world beyond our own and offers the possibility of connecting with ineffable beauty. The small opening in the house welcomes life and opens us to delight in new possibilities. To let go of our armor, to allow ourselves to soften. To hear the song of the house wren as if for the first time, sweet music pouring forth. A life force, shocking in its vibrancy and out of proportion to the physical size of the wren.
Our relatively small yard has numerous birdhouses. The birds they harbor bring us joy throughout the breeding season, so we wanted to share this pleasure with the neighborhood school - Colene Hoose Elementary - where the grounds were recently transformed into a nature playground. The project sprung from the mind of a fellow Audubon board member, who is a former Colene Hoose student. He is a serious birder now in his junior year of high school, and he is determined. When he’s not busy with soccer team activities, he is out in nature. If someone posts a rare bird alert, he races off to the location of the sighting. When he offered to work with his grandpa to make birdhouses for the school, the school administration was excited to say yes. Public schools are faced daily with challenges - a sewer back-up, a school bus snafu, an unhappy parent. So the idea of something so positive, something spearheaded by one of their own student alumni, was a real treat.
Typical central Illinois winter weather scuttled the planned birdhouse installation day. As much as we don’t mind being outside in the cold, no one was excited about wet snow, 30 degrees, and wind gusts up to 30mph. But also typical for central Illinois, the rescheduled event only two days later was a fairly balmy 40 degrees with no wind. On that day, we met with the principal, communications director, head groundskeeper, and the press at the pavilion toward the center of the sixteen-acre property. The school’s horticulturist arrived with a Radio Flyer wagon full of birdhouses and a small group of kids from the after-school program. The group dynamic shifted when the students arrived, especially when they enthusiastically embraced wearing shiny elf hats to support our “Christmas for the Birds” theme.
We divided the newly minted after-school elves into two groups. Three took charge of the bluebird/tree swallow houses, and two opted for the house wren/chickadee houses. I helped with the latter. The elves pulled the wagon full of birdhouses down the path, and I picked out trees. The head of grounds carried a small step ladder, and he positioned it next to each tree. A little elf climbed up the ladder, and we handed him a velcro strip and the birdhouse. He had to thread the velcro strip through a wire loop and around a branch. This took some dexterity and practice and ended with a real sense of accomplishment.
One of the elves was afraid of heights, but he really wanted to hang birdhouses. He would climb two steps and pause before tentatively stepping up onto the third step. If the tree required standing on the fourth step, he would say, “Nope, I can’t go any higher.” He would then step down, and his friend would hang that house. The birdhouses were already eliciting kindness, and they were not even in the trees yet.
We passed the other group occasionally and heard screams of delight and the sounds of a drill turning wood screws as they affixed their houses to wooden posts.
Over the next hour, we installed 20 birdhouses and a complete birdfeeder setup, including a pole with a squirrel baffle, two platform feeders, and a suet feeder. It was an instant transformation of a property signaling that we care about birds and are willing to work on their behalf. With birdhouses in place, the deep, tangled unity of the world can manifest itself here.
After we hung the last birdhouse, one of the boys asked if he would be on TV. I said, “Yes, tonight at 5 p.m.” He looked at me, paused, his eyes flashing, and he exclaimed, “Will I be on YouTube?” Apparently, that is this generation’s version of prime-time news.
Why am I sharing this small story? Because taking one seemingly small step can create real change. How many kids will be inspired? How many teachers will look forward to their workday a little bit more? Because sharing our love of birds in even this small way can have unforeseen consequences. The school is now in conversation with the Town’s parks department about restoring a natural area adjacent to another elementary school. They are also discussing the potential to restore prairie and build birdhouses on other school properties within the district. They already had plans to bring kids from the other elementary schools to the nature playground, and now those kids will also be exposed to the birdhouse project.
Our next steps are to continue supporting the birdhouse projects and to document the birds that use the houses over the summer. We also plan to install a screech owl nest box. We hope to integrate birds into the STEM curriculum at area schools and to connect students and residents with programs like Nestwatch, where they can join people across the country who document bird nesting behavior.
We are excited to see how the birdhouses impact the school children and the school staff members. We have so many questions. Which houses will be occupied by what bird species? How will the kids react to the birds? How many birds will be on the playground during the breeding season? Will the teachers incorporate birds into their lesson plans?
The birdhouse project has also served to sharpen the school’s horticulturist’s growing interest in birds. She had already been developing a relationship with the local crows, who now look to her for their daily peanut feeding. She is also keenly aware of the hawk that has taken up residence on the grounds.
When I met the horticulturist to plan the birdhouse event, we walked around the playground to find the best bluebird box locations. We noticed a red-shouldered hawk perched nearby, and as we were talking, we heard a rush of wings as she flew past us to perch on the top of a young bur oak.
I could tell this was part of the hawk’s routine. As soon as she landed, she started scanning piles of fall leaves that had accumulated in calm little pockets where the eddying winds corralled them. I learned that the horticulturist had intentionally left these leaves in place for the hawk.
After a few minutes of scanning, the hawk fixed her gaze on one spot. She leaned forward and stared, and then she slid off the branch in a fluid motion and dove into the leaves. She hit the ground, feet first, with a thud, and stood still. She bent down and appeared to be eating something we could not see. She started kneading the leaves with her talons, and we thought she must have caught something substantial. But then she flew off to her next perch. I am not sure if she caught something small and quickly ate it or if she was unsuccessful. But one thing was clear: she was focused on the piles of leaves.
This encounter was a good example of the benefit of being a little less tidy; leaving a few leaves in our yards or playgrounds makes a big difference for the birds.
In a similar way, birdhouses provide a home for the birds as they make palpable our inherent desire to connect with nature. The new lives that emerge from the houses will spark curiosity in kids and may set them on a lifelong path of appreciating birds and nature. Small acts like putting up birdhouses can have big effects. Working in a sphere where you have agency and can affect change is gratifying. Caring for birds can start in your yard and spread out from there, leading to positive change that ripples out across the landscape. Where there are birdhouses, songs fill the air—love songs for the earth.
Isles of Consolation
If life is, as some hold it to be, a vast melancholy ocean, over which ships more or less sorrow–laden continually pass, yet there lie here, and there, upon its Isles of Consolation onto which we may step out, and for a time, forget the wind and waves. One of these, we may call bird –isle – the island of watching and being entertained by the habits and humors of birds – and upon this one, for with the others, I have here nothing to do, I will straight away land, Inviting such as make care to, to follow me.
Edmond Selous, birdwatching, 1901