Audubon Birdhouse Book, Revised and Updated: Building, Placing, and Maintaining Great Homes for Great Birds

The Birdhouse Book is the most authoritative book available for creating safe, sturdy, and easy-to-build homes for many of North America’s favorite birds. This updated edition includes important new and timely topics including impacts of climate change on birds, nestbox monitoring for community science, native plants, and how birders can help birds.

Written with those who truly want the best for birds, The Birdhouse Book explains how to build and place functional DIY bird homes that are safe and appropriate for more than 20 classic North American species, from wrens to raptors. Each of the easy-to-build boxes and shelves within is accompanied by cut lists, specially created line diagrams, and step-by-step photography, making the projects accessible to those with even the most rudimentary woodworking skills. In addition, this practical and beautifully presented guide is packed with color photography and information about the bird species covered: Wrens, Warblers, Bluebirds, Flycatchers, Swallows, Titmice, Owls, Flickers, Kestrels, Chickadees, Ducks, Mergansers, Swallows, Doves, Swallows, Robins, Finches, Phoebes, Loons, Swifts, Herons, and Ospreys.

Detailed information will help you properly place and maintain the homes to attract birds. And because these projects are the product of years of experience and field-testing, you can be sure you’re getting the best advice regarding proper design, safe construction materials, and correct home placement to mitigate exposure to elements, pests, and predators. Finally, beyond the birdhouses, you’ll find out how you can contribute to the larger birding community and even enhance your birding experience.

Margaret A. Barker, a Chesapeake Bay–area writer and educator, grew up watching feeder birds in East Tennessee thanks to her bird-loving mother and grandmother. Covering environmental stories during a broadcast journalism career in the southeast, including at WGST, Atlanta, led to an MS degree via the Audubon Expedition Institute and an internship with Audubon’s Washington, DC, office. She managed the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Project FeederWatch and later the Kids Growing Food school garden program for Cornell’s Department of Education. She writes for newspapers and magazines, and she is co-author of Birding Adventures for Kids, The Birdhouse Book, The FeederWatcher’s Guide to Bird Feeding, and Feeding Wild Birds in America.

Elissa Wolfson has written and edited numer­ous environmental, botanical, ornithological, and veterinary publications. After graduating from Cornell University, she worked as an environmental educa­tor for a decade, earned an MS degree, and transitioned into environmental journalism. Her clients include the National Audubon Society and Cornell University’s Laboratory of Ornithology and College of Veterinary Medicine. She is former editor of E, The Environmental Magazine, and Cornell Plantations Magazine, current editor of Rationality and Society, author of 101 Cool Games for Cool Cats, and co-author of Birding Adventures for Kids, The Birdhouse Book, and the American Museum of Natural History Pocket Birds of North America, Eastern and Western Regions.