Looking for a fun little project that also helps our local birds and bats? Then we suggest that you pre-order a birdhouse kit from Yestermorrow and Mad River Path! Until April 25, you can purchase a birdhouse kit with all the hardware required for assembly. Bird houses will be ready for pick-up at Yestermorrow beginning May 17. Choose from three birdhouse kit options: Eastern bluebird/tree swallow birdhouse, wood duck/hooded merganser, and Eastern phoebe/American robin. There’s habitat information on the website so you can choose the best box for where you live! Completed bat houses are also available. You can even buy a locally sourced and milled natural eight foot post on which the birdhouses can be installed, thanks to Corrigan & Klein Artisan Builders.
—> Pre-order here! <—
Once purchased and built, or just purchased in the case of the bat houses, the structures can either be installed on your property or donated for installation along the Mad River Path at a handful of sites identified by Vermont Master Naturalists, Jessica Knoop and Katie Sullivan. Use the “destination” drop-down menu in the online store for each birdhouse to purchase for your property or to donate it to a path location.
The kits and bat houses will be available for contactless pick-up on the Yestermorrow campus after May 17. Specific pick-up instructions will be emailed early May. Kits start at $25 and should take between 15-30 minutes to assemble. The kits are family-friendly and require only a hammer, screwdriver, or power drill, depending on the kit. To install an eight foot post, a ladder and sledge hammer will be needed, or a posthole digger or shovel would work. Alternatively, many of the birdhouses can be installed on a tree, others on a building. More details on assembly and installation are found on the online store, including habitat info that describes where birdhouses will be most successful. Since Eastern bluebirds and tree swallows compete for nesting sites and therefore multiple birdhouses in an area are ideal, a discount of five dollars will be applied to an order of two of these birdhouses with the code TWOBIRDS.
Happy spring and tweet tweet!