Hope everyone is enjoying some warmer weather!  We were blessed with a fairly mild Winter, especially compared with some parts of the country!  So here's to a fun and pleasant Spring and Summer!

Today I thought I'd share my efforts to create some housing for the Northern Flicker, a member of the Woodpecker family! They spend a lot of time pecking trees, like all other Woodpeckers, and then continue pecking and cleaning out a circular home about 15" to 18" deep, the entry hole being at the top.

About five years ago, a hurricane rolled through our area and spawned a few tornadoes.  One of those tornadoes ran an awkward path through our property tearing the tops out of quite a few trees, creating about 23 full days of cutting and hauling all the tree debris that was spread around our property along with one tree that came completely up and over, roots and all!

As a result of that storm, I began seeing more and more Northern Flickers building their homes in one of the trees that had lost all it's limbs, the top third or so of the tree, leaving it about 70' high, and a goodly portion of it's bark!  It was a rather large tree, about 8' in diameter at the base, so there was plenty of room for all the birds to live and raise their families!

I seemed to fall in love with the beauty of the Northern Flicker and that led to my building a bird house specifically for that species of bird!  Although they are in the Woodpecker family, they don't seem to get all the accolades of most Woodpeckers as the Northern Flicker tends to do a lot of ground hovering, eating ants! Which they really love!

Different birds have different idiosyncrasies, things that they like to include in their home.  Some prefer to build a nest out of small bits of debris right out in the open, on a tree branch.  Others like to have a little more protection and/or privacy and chip away an entrance into a tree, like the Northern Flicker!

I won't go into the construction process for this specific bird house as it can be easily found by simply typing in something like Northern Flicker birdhouse specs, or Northern Flicker Birdhouse Construction Directions.  Anything along that line of questioning will work.  What I want to share is something not discussed a lot.  The material!

Some sites will suggest using Cedar, which I used, due to weather and insect resistance!  It is a good choice.  But remember, different woods weigh more or less than others! Cedar can easily weigh twice that of Eastern Pine when measured by the board foot. A board foot is thickness x width x length. 1" x 12" x 12" = 144" divided by 144 = 1 BF (board foot).  So, first thing I did not give enough importance to was the weight! Because not only did I decide to use Cedar, I also decided to use some Cedar I had left over from other projects that was almost 1.125" thick and had not been run through the thickness planer!  Big mistake insofar as overall weight is concerned!

In the end, I was able to get it installed, by at my age, and with the size of the bird house, it was almost too heavy for me to lift to the top of the ladder, hold it in place and get it installed, all by myself!  I took a LOT of breaks to rest my arms and shoulders but the end result was well worth it!

So, FYI, when building these projects that may require you to climb up a ladder or something similar, while carrying/holding/balancing a large, heavy piece of wood, not to mention the tools you may need to secure the bird house, you may want to consider using lighter woods!  It may mean that in a few years you may have to do another build and replace your original bird house with a new one, but it WILL be TEN TIMES SAFER!  Especially if you are attempting to install your bird house a dozen feet or more off the ground ALL BY YOURSELF!  So, have fun building and working with small projects such as this, but think it through and BE SAFE!

A few pictures are below so please check them out! In the pictures of the interior of the bird house, those are pine wood chips which apparently Northern Flickers like to have so that they can "clean them out" as part of their process of creating a new home!  And please feel free to comment about the post, the birdhouse or any project you are thinking of!  And please, don't hesitate to ask questions!  If I don't have the answer, I'll do my best to steer you to someone that does!