In my post earlier today, I commented that I saw bird houses made of composite material (such as Trex) and was curious as to their thermal properties, since climate change is making many traditional house designs dangerous due to higher average temperatures.

After reading the articles below, it sounds as though composite lumber heats up faster, retains heat longer reaches higher temperatures, and also loses heat faster than traditional, unfinished softwood.

Article from Trex

Article from a deck builder

Even if the heat differential won’t kill the birds, it seems to have greater potential to stunt nestling growth and to increase dehydration risk.

I didn’t find any articles from birding groups about them being dangerous, but it seems very recent that they have been taking note of increased nest box death, so it may not have much research into it yet.

While the initial thought was something like this should last longer, stay prettier, and be easy to maintain sounded great, seeing it both holds more heat during the day and loses more at night sounds like a negative in both directions. It may be best to stick with unfinished wood.

I’m curious to hear anyone’s thoughts on this. Don’t take my hour of research as gospel. It just came up in conversation and I haven’t seen this discussed.

  • @proudblondEnglish
    7•4 months ago

    There is so much that can go wrong with human-built bird houses. When I was a very young adult, I worked for a retail bird seed store and learned all sorts of things about backyard birds in order to be able to help customers. One of the things I learned was how specific houses needed to be for each type of bird. One of the major risks was that building it incorrectly would make it easier for predators to get at the nest, for instance. It also mattered where you installed it.

    Now that I’m in my 40s, jaded and skeptical, I kind of wonder if some of that was all marketing (oh the wren house is different from the bluebird house so maybe you need both?) but the franchise did really seem to have good intentions. We didn’t make most of our money on that stuff anyway. The real money was in the ongoing fancy birdseed purchases.

    Anyway, I can totally see why the material of a birdhouse would matter. I wonder how much good man-made birdhouses are in general?

    • anon6789OP
      5•4 months ago

      I’ll paste in my response in the other thread. I started this new post because it was getting buried pretty deep. I put in a number of issues with house design and lots of info about design criteria like that you mentioned.

      As we eliminate natural habitat, I think man made shelter can help if it’s designed for the birds, not for the humans. You can’t shove any old bird in any old box.

      It is true about predator access, and there are way more things that want to eat birds and eggs than most people think like squirrels and sparrows. Even if the house has that little post sticking out from under the hole can allow the wrong type of animal access to the nest.

      Check the links below and you will have a ton of info to go through.

      I think it’s nice they actually taught you all that! It’d be heartbreaking to put out a home to attract your favorite birds, only to see them out their babies get hurt because of it.

      Oh boy, we could go on about bird house design waaaay longer than you would think, especially now with climate change really starting to kick in. I’ll try to limit my rambling, while still giving you way more info than you want.

      The hole should be as small as possible for the type of bird you wish to house. That keys out anything that wants to kill the adults or steal/destroy the chicks or eggs. Even things like squirrels raid and kill in them.

      Not just the size, but the shape, and distance from the floor of the birdhouse matters. The species are all built a bit differently, and some can only get in through slots instead of holes. Some need the little stick perch under the hole, while for others that makes it more inviting to predators.

      Here is a great article just about holes.

      I had Carolina Wrens nest on my porch this year, and they build nests with a side entrance, so they need a side slot, or just something more open so they can enter through the side.

      Additional factors can include how high from the ground the box is, which way it faces, is it on a tree or a pole, color vs plain wood, etc.

      Here is a more dedicated site with species specific data.

      There have been a number of articles recently about the heat dangers of birdhouses, and larger numbers of birds are dying. Many common and popular bird box plans are from decades ago and are starting to no longer provide safety for the birds.

      As you stated, avoiding direct sun can help, but insulated or double roof designs can help. Due to their enclosed nature, they trap the body heat of the parents and chicks. That’s also why many are made of wood and not things like metal that can conduct too much heat either in or away. They’re almost always hotter than the ambient temperature. Overall inner dimensions matter to allow room for circulation.

      Even if the heat does not kill the adults or chicks, chicks are getting all their water from food, so they can still dehydrate or have stunted growth.

      Here’s a good article about nest box heat danger.

      Here’s a prior post about owl box designs.

      I swear I did one one the outdated box designs causing heat death, specific to owls, but I can’t find it now.