Building nest boxes for birds is a wonderful activity which serves to educate the public about wildlife and to build camaraderie in groups. It is an especially useful method to educate children about environmental problems.

A practical barrier to building nest boxes is that of just getting started: locating plans, tools, materials, and, hopefully, an experienced helper or two. An alternative is to buy a nest box kit which is ready to assemble. This article is written to provide assistance in two areas:

1. It provides plans and instructions for making and assembling one or a few nest boxes with a simple design. Such information is available from many sources, and references are provided for more extensive information.
2. It provides information on methods with which volunteers can mass produce nest box kits ready for assembly. This information is rather unique and probably not available elsewhere. Having these kits readily available increases the number of boxes which could be assembled, for example, by school children

The article is tempered with experience and tips derived from the experiences of volunteers in making and helping assemble nearly 1000 nest box kits in Silicon Valley over the past decade.

To open this article, click here or on the below ICON captioned Building Nest Boxes and Nest Box Kits as a Group Activity. Note that the size of this file exceeds 3 MB.

The Barn Owl box design in this article was developed by Steve Simmons of Merced, California, and has been in extensive use since 1995 in the region near Merced in the northern end of the Central Valley of California.

Simmons has become a significant contributor to bird ecology through a massive program of building nest boxes, followed by studying the occupants via banding. An interest in wood duck populations led him to begin building and installing wood duck boxes along the Merced River in the early 1970s.

For years Simmons has monitored hundreds of these Barn Owl boxes, and banded over 14,000 Barn Owls by 2010. Working with students from the University of California at Davis, Washington State University, California State University at Chico, and the California Polytechnic University, he has noted Barn Owl courtship behavior, deciphered their diet, observed the competition between owls and other avian species, and experimented with variations in siting, mounting and designs of the box.

The article addresses numerous aspects and issues including:

• tool requirements
• required materials
• drawings of the box including exploded views
• a cutlist showing how the parts can be cut from a sheet of plywood
• finishing of the parts before assembly
• entrance hole dimensions
• steps to assemble the box
• mounting methods and considerations
• where to place the box
• the breeding cycle and life style of Barn Owls
• box maintenance

To open this article, click here or on the below ICON captioned SimmonsBarnOwlBox. Note that the size of this file exceeds 3 MB.

A companion document to the above article is provided, and can be obtained by clicking here or on the below ICON captioned SimmonsBarnOwlEntrance. The expected result of printing this companion document is to produce a template of the correct size and shape for the Barn Owl box's entrance hole.

Scott Stokes has developed a useful template which can be used to locate the entrance hole and grip groves on the box's front. This template can be obtained by clicking here or on the below ICON captioned SimmonsBarnOwlBoxTemplate. Before using the template, insure that it correctly printed by verifying that the dimensions of the hole are correct. One possible reason for the dimensions being incorrect is that it was printed with the printer's page scaling or sizing option incorrectly set. E.G. Page Scaling option not set to none, or Page Sizing option not set to Actual Size.