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Titmouse production. DIY birdhouse made of wood: drawings, materials, decor and installation. How to make a tit toy from pompoms

Birds living in the garden are of great benefit in the fight against harmful insects. In order for the birds to live there permanently, they need to build houses: birdhouses and titmice. On the pages of this site we have already told you how to build. The titmouse is the same birdhouse, only smaller in size. It is intended for small birds: tits, sparrows, pied flycatchers, redstarts. Today we will tell you how to make a titmouse with your own hands.

The tit house is small in size. First, let's make the bottom. This will be a square measuring 14 by 14 cm. We will make it from pine boards that we have left over after production. Their thickness is 2 cm, width is 10 cm, so we will need 2 pieces 14 cm long.

We drill two holes at the ends of the segments, drive dowels into them and connect them together. Cut off the excess with a jigsaw.

Now let's take care of the front and back walls. Cut 4 pieces of 20 cm long and connect two pieces each with dowels. Cut 2 pentagons from the boards with a base of 14 cm and a maximum width of 20 cm.

In one polygon at a distance of 12 cm from the bottom there is a taphole. Tits will fly into the house using it. The diameter of the tap hole is 3.5 cm. We will cut it out with a drill using a special metal crown of the required size.

We made crowns like these. On the inside, under the entrance, we will make small notches with a chisel to make it easier for the birds to get out. Let's connect the elements of the titmouse with self-tapping screws, having previously drilled small holes in the tiles so that the board does not burst.

Let's measure the distance between the front and back walls, cut out the necessary pieces from the planks and make the sides of the titmouse. Let's fasten them with self-tapping screws.

All that remains is to install the roof. Let's mark the boards so that the roof overhang protrudes 3-4 cm above the front and side walls. This will protect the entrance from rain moisture. We will also fasten the roof with self-tapping screws.

We drill a small hole in the front wall, drop some wood glue into it and stick a perch of suitable thickness.

To prevent water from leaking through the roof into the titmouse, we attach a piece of protective material to it with a construction stapler. It will not scare the birds, but the house will be dry at any time of the year.

Ornithologists write that tits are reluctant to fly into houses made from fresh boards. They prefer to settle in a dwelling that has been hanging in the garden for 2-3 years, whose boards have darkened with age. Therefore, we will decorate our titmouse with bark, which we tore off from old stumps.

Before that, we dried it well in Russian. Using a stapler, we attach the bark to the front and side walls.

Now our titmouse resembles an old hollow in a tree.

All that remains is to screw the block to the back wall, climb up the ladder onto the apple tree and tie the bird's house to the trunk with wire, with the entrance to the south or southwest, at a height of 4-6 meters from the ground.

In winter, when snow covers the ground, you need to take care of the birds and install them in the garden, thereby helping your feathered friends wait out the hungry times.

The main enemies of birds are cats. Therefore, it is better to install the house in a place in the tree where it is impossible for them to reach. The do-it-yourself titmouse is ready. We just have to wait for the new residents to move in and help us fight garden pests.

In the article we’ll talk to you about how to make a titmouse - a convenient housing for ornamental birds, which are necessary in any summer cottage. We hope it will be very interesting and informative!

The titmouse is intended for birds such as tit, garden redstart, goldfinch, pied flycatcher and many other ornamental birds that will not allow a large number of pests to multiply and develop in your summer cottage. And they look just great.

How to make a titmouse

If you have a desire to have tits in your garden, attract them with comfort, and not with original compositions of a bird house. Be wary of using new building materials: birds simply will not survive in houses made of plywood, asbestos-cement pipe, roofing felt or baked clay during low temperatures. Moreover, plywood is quickly destroyed by rain.

How to make a titmouse correctly

If you think carefully, creating comfortable housing for beautiful and useful birds is not difficult for a simple gardener. Such birds will happily settle in a wooden house with a horizontal roof (the titmouse is usually hung on a tree with a slight slope forward - which is enough for water to drain). There is no need to plan the workpieces; the titmouse will not be able to climb on the smooth and slippery walls inside the house.

Drawing of a titmouse with dimensions (Great and Triangular titmouse)

It is best to use not a board for the roof of a house, but a slab directly along with the bark. For convenient internal cleaning, the roof of the house is removable. It is necessary to clean when you are completely sure that there is no one in the house. A bedding of sawdust or dust, up to 2 cm thick, is laid on the floor.


Scheme of wooden titmouses with dimensions

It is not necessary to make a shelf under the entrance (entrance for birds) - birds cope well without it, but for cats and crows it will serve as a good support.

To help the birds

So that the birds can build their own housing according to their taste, make a titmouse with lattice walls. Put something like cotton wool, tow, dry grass in it and hang it on the intended tree. In the process of life, to build a nest, tits pluck wool from animals and all kinds of suitable materials. Now they don’t have to do this, everything has been prepared in advance by your hands right there in the garden.

How to hang a titmouse

There is no point in nailing the house to a living tree. You just need to tie it to the trunk with thin wire. It would be even better if you attach the house with a plank. To the ends behind the titmouse, closer to the roof, you need to nail a plank that will hold the house in the fork of the tree branches. To hang the house, you need to pry it with a pole with a nail nailed into it at the end at the entrance (entrance for the bird) and hang it in any spear on the tree you like. A house made in this way can then be easily removed for moving to another place or for preventative cleaning. In order not to damage the tree branches, the edges of the plank itself must be wrapped in soft material or the edges must be given a round shape.

Tin from cats

Cover the pole on which you hung the birdhouse at chest level with a sheet of tin for 1 meter. Cats will not be able to climb over slippery tin, thus reducing the threat to the chicks. If you don’t find a piece of tin, wrap the pole with barbed wire. Such methods are also good for protecting nests in trees. Use them with caution so as not to harm the tree or prevent the trunk from further development.

  • On a plot of 4-5 trees, one such house is enough.
  • Do not point the entrance to the leeward side (where the wind often blows from). Point it south, southwest. Hang the titmouses at a height of 3-5 meters.
  • During the winter it is necessary to constantly feed the birds until spring. Otherwise, they will die without finding food in their usual place.
  • can be made from food boxes or bottles that need to be washed thoroughly. Cover the neck with a lid, cut an entrance in the bottom and hang it horizontally. In winter, feeding from such a feeder, the birds look for a home nearby. Tits do not forget where they were fed in the summer and willingly settle on the site.

Signal for tits

It is very easy to set tits on pests. Anoint the bark of trees with pests with non-salted melted lard. Tits are very attracted to this smell; they quickly flock to the treat and quickly pick up all the pests.

​Similar articles​

Why do you need a titmouse?

Tits willingly settle in vertically dug pipes with a diameter of 8-12 cm and a height of 1-1.5 meters. Pour a layer of crushed stone into the pipe to ground level, and 5 cm of sawdust on top. The bird's nest is made inside a pipe close to the ground. Make a roof over the top of the tube house. Secure raw slats or climbing rods inside, inserting the lower ends into the gravel and tying the upper ends to the pipe with wire. You can use for houses cuttings of plastic, asbestos, metal pipes with a diameter of 8-12 cm, tightly covered with cut branches.​

​In spring and summer, the main diet of tits consists of caterpillars, beetles, and spiders; in the fall, the number of insects decreases and the number of seeds increases, and in winter, tits fly closer to human habitation and love to feast on what we prepare for them in our feeders.​

Do-it-yourself titmouse: dimensions, photos

You can hang a birdhouse in a variety of places - gardens, parks, on a tree under a window, on the edge of a forest, and not only in spring, but also at any other time of the year. If you hang it in the fall, then in winter many forest birds will find refuge in it, moving in difficult times closer to human habitation, and the earliest heralds of spring will happily settle in this time-tested dwelling. In spring, the best time to hang birdhouses is: late March - early April. The optimal height for securing a birdhouse is 3-6 m. It is very important that the birdhouse is slightly tilted forward, so it is more convenient for birds to fly in and out. The entrance should be directed to the south, east or southeast so that the northwest winds prevailing in our area do not disturb the inhabitants of the birdhouse.​

​Before you start working, compare the parts with the diagram and, without knocking them together, assemble it on the table to make it easier later. When knocking down, be careful and make sure that the unplaned surface of the boards faces the inside of the bird’s house. Adult birds and chicks get out of it by clinging to rough surfaces with their claws, and if the inner surface is smooth, this can threaten the chicks' death. Now let's get to work.​

  • DIY bird house
  • ​L - letok.​
  • Because of which they get sick, the chicks grow slowly and often die. So once a year you need to remove the bird house and clean it: if possible, remove old fluff, scald it, dry it in the sun or fumigate it with sulfur. The third myth is that it is not necessary to make detailed houses from boards - there is a lot of improvised material in which birds can comfortably live . For example, a small tuesok or pottery flower pots.​
  • It is better to hang titmouses in the fall, choosing a dense crown of branches. Over the long winter, the birds will gradually take a liking to their new home, get used to it, and begin to spend nights there more often. Subsequently, they will definitely stay there to live. If you hang a titmouse at the end of winter or in the spring, then it will most likely go to other birds that are returning from wintering.
  • The back wall is nailed to the bottom.
  • ​brush and paint (unscented).​

DIY titmouse: dimensions

The titmouse is one of the most useful birds, because in just a day it is capable of eating harmful insects in a volume equal to itself. These small birds prefer not to travel to warm regions for the winter. How to help them survive the frosts by making a titmouse with your own hands, the size of which will be comfortable for them, is described in this article.​

  1. ​Tits love nesting sites with passageways. A house without internal partitions. Even if the cat gets to one entrance, the tit can easily fly out to another. It is better to arrange all nesting sites for tits under a dense crown of bushes or near buildings, but on a deserted side. It has been noticed that tits also inhabit the tops of posts tied with brushwood or thin slats 70-80 cm long. It happens that a pair of tits even lives in a sheaf of dill placed on a fence stake.​
  2. ​In addition to tits, blue tits, nuthatch, redstarts, pied flycatchers, whirligigs and many other small birds can live in your titmouse.
  3. ​In Russia, the starling is distributed from the western borders to Transbaikalia, and to the north - to the forest-tundra. Starlings arrive in nesting areas in the second half of March. Males appear first, followed by females a week later. At first, starlings stay in thawed areas, looking for insects in places well-warmed by the sun, then they appear near hollows and birdhouses. The male sings very animatedly near the nesting site, choking, often flapping his wings and opening his beak wide. The song consists of imitative whistling, creaking, gurgling sounds, now and then turning into a high clear whistle. By hanging a birdhouse near your home, you can see for yourself that starlings are mockingbirds and include a variety of sounds they hear in their song - from excerpts from the songs of other birds to the croaking of frogs and barking dogs. These birds also imitate the human voice well. But if the starling senses danger, it makes a sharp creaking sound.​
  4. ​Attach the fastening strip from the outside of the back wall exactly in the middle and nail it with 2 nails. The nails should protrude outward from the side of the plank, where they should be bent.​
  5. ​Boards 2 cm thick and min. 19 cm wide. It is important that one side of the board is unplaned (or properly scratched with a knife) - this will make it easier for birds, and especially chicks, to get out of the birdhouse.​

Assembling a house for tits

​In design, the titmouse is the same birdhouse. Only the diameter of the entrance (it must be round) for the middle tit is 3​

  1. ​So, let's start construction. The most common material for a birdhouse/tithouse: any boards (except
  2. ​There is no need to nail the house to the tree, you just need to attach it with wire, rope or suitable material. The best option is a plank. A half-meter-long piece of wood is carefully nailed to the end of the titmouse. She secures the house between the branches. Suspended from a tree using a constructed pole with a nail at the end, which is hooked directly onto the tap hole. A do-it-yourself titmouse (the size allows it) can be quickly removed for transfer to another location.​
  3. ​The front wall is screwed to the resulting device.​
  4. ​To properly make a home for birds, you must adhere to the following rules:​
  5. ​Tits are faithful to their nesting place and do not leave it with the onset of cold weather. However, not all birds can withstand and survive severe frosts. It is especially difficult for them when sticky snow or unpleasant drizzle falls. Birds have nowhere to hide from bad weather, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain food. Because they feed only on small insects, it becomes extremely difficult for them to feed themselves in winter. Therefore, it is important to help them and make a titmouse with your own hands. Dimensions and drawings can be found in available sources or, if desired, made independently.​
  6. ​[link blocked by decision of the project administration]​

The smallest city and forest birds nest in small titmouses. The small size of the entrance hole protects them from encroachment by larger and stronger contenders.​
​And what is inside the birdhouse? The starling's nest is a small, loose lining of dry grass stems and leaves. In mid or late April, the female lays 5-6 bluish eggs. The clutch is incubated alternately by both parents for two weeks. The chicks appear in the second half of May and for 18-20 days they need constant parental care - warming and feeding. Only at the end of May - beginning of June do they leave their native nest, but even after that they are protected and fed by their parents for another two weeks. Having learned under their guidance all the wisdom of birds, young starlings unite in large flocks that fly through meadows, fields and parks, feeding on harmful insects, which is of great benefit to people.​

How to position correctly

​Nail the resulting workpiece to the side wall with 2 nails from the rear wall.​

  • ​Nails 5 cm with head - 19 pcs.​
  • ​cm, for smaller tits and birds - 2.5 cm. The square bottom is 10x10 cm or 12x12 cm. The height of the side walls is about 30-40 cm. There is no need to install an additive stick under the flight hole. It is advisable to make the inner walls dark in color - tits prefer camouflage.​

​coniferous) with a thickness of at least 20 mm. The inner surface should be uneven, preferably with burrs and burrs; it cannot be planed, since the birds crawl out of the house, clinging to the walls of the house with their claws, and feed the chicks by hanging on them.​

​The second method of attaching a titmouse allows you to secure it to the trunk and branches of a tree using a wire loop. It is enough to hammer a bracket into pre-drilled holes in each side, then pass a wire through them - and you can hang the house on a tree. But you should try to bend the ends of the staples at a right angle. Wire 3 mm thick and 1.5 cm long is quite suitable for such staples.

How to secure a house

  1. ​The side parts of the bird house are nailed down.​
  2. ​The thickness of the boards should not be more than 3 cm.​
  3. ​Experts have calculated that by the time spring arrives, only a third of the total bird population remains. You can increase their survival rate, and, consequently, the birth rate, with the help of food houses made by kind people. A smart titmouse, having tasted a tasty treat once, will fly to the feeder constantly. And this, in turn, will save fragile lives and help survive the winter.​

Arrangement of the house

A house for tits differs from a birdhouse only in its smaller size. The manufacturing method is the same. But for the great tit, which hatches many chicks, it is better to make a house with a bottom area of ​​14x14 cm, and fill the corners with wooden corners. Even more convenient for a great tit is a nest box with a bottom diameter of 12-14 cm and an entrance of 4.2 cm. For a chickadee, on the contrary, the diameter of the entrance should be only 3 cm, so that larger birds cannot, having entered the house, drive out this little tit.

The Muscovy (also called the black tit) is a small bird weighing from 8.5 to 10 grams. She can be easily recognized by her voice - a rather loud “qi-qi-qi” or “did-di-di, tyu-pi, tyu-pi,” repeated several times. Spring song is a short, ringing and melodic trill. Although this titmouse is called the Muscovy, it lives not only in Moscow. It is widespread in coniferous, mainly spruce, and less often mixed forests of Eurasia. The Muscovy is a nomadic bird. In autumn it can often be found in flocks of great tits and brown-headed tits.​

​In autumn, starlings appear at their nests again and sing for several days as if they are going to nest again. The autumn song of a starling near your birdhouse is a sure sign that he liked the house you gave him, and he will want to return to it again and again with his girlfriend. In September - early October, flocks of starlings fly to wintering places in southern Europe and North Africa, so that exactly six months later they will again bring spring on their wings to our cities and villages.​

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Build, make a birdhouse, titmouse for the garden, personal plot

​Nail the second side wall in the same way.​

​Pencil, compass and ruler​

​For a great tit, which hatches many chicks, it is better to make a house with a bottom size of 14x14 cm, and hammer in the corners

​Don’t bother sealing small cracks, the birds will caulk them better and more reliably.​

​The third method is a pole. A simple stick is nailed to the back wall of the house. It is advisable to cover it with tin so that cats cannot climb into the bird’s nest and the chicks remain unharmed. If there is no tin at hand, then use barbed wire or similar material.​

​The roof is put on, and the finished product is painted with a brush, after which it is allowed to dry.​

​For the roof: the visor is made slightly protruding forward above the front wall.​

​Making a titmouse with your own hands is quite easy and simple. Typically, large tits live in hollows, so it will be great if the design of the house resembles a natural home. For this, slightly planed scraps of wood and boards, such as pine, are suitable. By the way, the titmouse is somewhat different from its fellow birdhouse, both in diameter and in other measurements.​

​THIS IS THE TITTIC BIRD THAT TITS HAVE LIVED FOR 4 YEARS ALREADY
​The first spring trill (one of the first signals of spring) - February 12. It nests in hollows, sometimes in burrows, in rock cracks, and in the city very often in titmice. The outer walls of her nest are made of moss and horsehair; internal ones are made of wool, sometimes feathers and cobwebs. Clutch - 6-11 white eggs with reddish speckles. The chicks hatch on days 13-14. The first fledglings appear on July 4th. If the year is fruitful, the Muscovy nests twice, and builds the nest again, choosing a titmouse nearby.​
In addition to the starling, woodpeckers, swifts, sparrows and many other birds can live in your titmouse.
​Take the bottom and use a hammer to carefully insert it between the three walls so that a flat surface is formed. Nail the bottom to the walls: one nail in the center of the bottom of the side walls and 2 nails on the side of the back wall.​
​Jigsaw​
​wooden corners. An even more convenient housing for a great tit is a nest box with a bottom diameter of 12-14 cm and a entrance of 4.2 cm.​

​Fig. Drawing of a birdhouse/titmouse

After hanging, dried wood dust is poured inside the titmouse in a 1 cm layer along the entire bottom. Peat elements are also used for this purpose.​

​In order to be able to remove the roof of the titmouse in the future and clean it of dust and dirt, it is necessary to make it removable. The technology is simple: a small piece of board is nailed to the inside of the roof, corresponding to a rectangle formed by four vertical walls.​

​For the small titmouse, the optimal bottom size is 9 x 9 cm.​

​You need to prepare all the necessary tools that you will need to make a homemade titmouse. Dimensions are calculated in advance. You will need the following:​

​Elementary! This is the same birdhouse, but assembled “in blue”!​

​This little tit feeds mainly on insects; in autumn and winter, a significant part of its diet consists of coniferous seeds, especially spruce. Although the Muscovy is more herbivorous than our other tits, among the insects it eats there are many serious forest pests.​

​You can hang a titmouse in a variety of places - gardens, parks, on a tree under a window, on a forest edge, and not only in spring, but at any other time of the year. If titmouses are hung in the fall, they attract tits, which spend the night in them in the winter and remain for nesting in the spring. In the spring, the best time for hanging titmouses is: late March - early April. The optimal height for securing a titmouse is 3-8 m. In nature, titmouse choose dark hollows. It will be warm and cozy in such a nest, so try to hang the bird house inside the shady crown. Take the front wall, attach it to the resulting blank and nail it with 5 nails: 2 in the side walls and 1 in the bottom.

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>DIY bird house

​Drill​

Several old birdhouses were removed from the dacha. It is useless to repair them; it is easier to make new ones. At our dacha there lives a large flock of sparrows, starlings fly in, we have our own hard-working woodpecker, there are a lot of wagtails, swallows, titmice, and very beautiful unfamiliar forest birds also appear from time to time... We need a lot of housing for everyone! I found a good tutorial on birdhouses on the internet, maybe it will be useful for someone too. Thanks to the author for the details! So, let's sculpt:

Materials:

Birdhouse details:

The black-headed chickadee can also settle in your titmouse. A characteristic feature of the bird is its manner of staying in pairs and great affection for each other. The call is a ringing “qi-qi-zhzhee-zhee” or a sad whistle “pyuy-pyuy-pyuy”. Her song is very melodic and sonorous. The Brown-headed Chickadee (also called the Chickadee) is very similar, but they can be easily distinguished by their voices. The chubby's call is: "tsie-tsiee" or "dzee-dzee", and sometimes he makes a short and frequent "chik-tsii-tsi". And the tufted tit (grenadier) can be recognized not only by the large sharp striped crest on its head, but also by the loud “tsi-tsi-trrch”. The pied flycatcher will announce that it really liked your bird house with its ringing “peep-peep.”

The great tit is distributed in the forest zone of Russia from the western borders to the Pacific coast and in the Caucasus. A common and numerous species of birds living in deciduous and mixed forests, gardens and parks, they lead a sedentary and nomadic lifestyle. The earliest spring singing of great tits was observed in cities in January-February during thaws. In March, tits find places for nesting, stay in selected areas, and the males sing actively. Having hung a titmouse on a tree next to your house, you will find out that new residents have appeared in it, having heard the cheerful songs of titmouses. The song of the great tit is a loud, measured, repeating sound: “tsi-tsi-fi, tsi-tsi-fi, tsi-tsi-fi...”. In addition, she has a loud call - “pin-pin-zhzh”. The songs of young males are more varied.​

​Take the lid and draw 4 lines on the inside: three at a distance of 2 cm from the edge and the fourth at a distance of 5 cm, as shown in the dotted line in the diagram. Then place the sleeve on the resulting square and nail it to the lid with 4 nails - one on each side.​

  1. ​Hammer​
  2. ​should be tiltable and removable for observation and cleaning. For easy removal, two strips are nailed and placed parallel to opposite walls. The easiest way is to secure the removable roof using wire loops or carefully nail it with nails.​
  3. ​B - height of the side wall;​
  4. To construct a feeder, tetrapacks and any plastic bottles are used. They are filled with oats, nuts, and berries. Tits do not like wheat grains, bread crumbs and millet - they are tasteless and not very nutritious for them. The titmouse's favorite treats are sunflower and hemp seeds. A great joy for the little defenders of the garden will be a piece of lard, but not salted, which is hung on a string. The titmice fly up and peck it, hanging with their paws on a thread.​
  5. ​Craftsmen place their hand-made titmouse on trees or special poles. The dimensions for this can be observed as follows:
  6. ​Dimensions of the house for large tits: the diameter of the entrance is 3 cm, the parameters of the bottom of the titmouse are 12 x 12 cm, and the height from the bottom to the lid is 25 cm, the distance from the bottom to the entrance is 18 cm.​
  7. ​You can’t do without a hammer;​

​maybe. in a tree trunk? hollow it out and make a lid.​

​In addition to tits, pied flycatchers, garden warblers and many other tiny birds can settle in your titmouse. Captive budgerigars and canaries happily nest in small titmice.

How to hang a birdhouse correctly.

​In the second half of April - early May, females begin to build nests. They are based on green moss, dry stems and leaves of cereals, thin dry twigs, pieces of lichen, the tray is lined with down, feathers, and wool.​

STARLINGS

​Close the birdhouse with a lid so that a canopy is formed above the entrance to the bird's house. The lid is not nailed to the birdhouse, since it should be cleaned after the nesting period in the fall. But the lid must fit tightly so that neither a cat nor a crow - the main enemies of the chicks - can open it. If necessary, the edges of the sleeve and the edges of the walls inside can be sanded for better alignment.​

​Sandpaper (sandpaper)​

​What to cover the house with? It is advisable to do without stains, nitro paints, varnishes and other impregnations. If you really want, you can

​B - roof width;​

TITS

​First of all, let’s dispel the myth that bird houses are made and hung exclusively in the spring. This can be done in both spring and summer,

​distance to the ground - at least 4 meters;​

​The assembly of all components of the titmouse is carried out in the following sequence:

​drill, it can be manual or electric;​

​The same birdhouse, only hollowed out from a round deck​

​At the end of April - May, tits lay eggs. A full clutch contains 8-12, sometimes up to 14, white eggs with numerous small red-brown speckles. The female incubates the clutch, and the male feeds her. The chicks hatch on days 13-14. Both parents feed them for 17-18 days, and already in mid-June the babies leave the nests. The male feeds them for about two weeks, and after 4-5 days the female begins building a new nest and, if there is another titmouse hanging nearby, takes it over. And everything starts all over again, and the chicks of the second brood leave the nests in early August.​

Lesser titmouse

The classic type of birdhouse also includes a perch, but the birds don’t really need it. Without it, the nest inside the birdhouse will be safer, since it will not be so easy for a bird of prey to sit next to the exit, or for a cat to lean on its paw. In addition to the danger from enemies, the pole promotes bird fights between competitors for a convenient nesting site. If, after all of the above, you still want to make a perch, drill a blind hole just below the tap hole with a diameter the size of the selected perch. To prevent it from falling out of the hole over time due to fluctuations in temperature and humidity, additionally fix it inside the hole using wood glue.​

The further you move from the city, the more clearly you can hear the singing of birds. Often, even in the countryside, you can hear and see small birds, which not only entertain with their vocals, but also actively and almost imperceptibly help in the fight against pests. An owner who knows has a healthy garden and good feathered companions on the site.

Why do you need to make a titmouse in the country?

The thing is that tits as companions are very useful for garden trees and vegetable crops.

Tit is a generalized name for several representatives of the passerine order and the tit family. In our latitudes, the most recognizable species are the great tit, black tit or black tit, as well as chickadees and blue tits. Their habitat is quite wide. Some species prefer to settle in forests, others have better adapted to the conditions of populated areas and find places for nests near houses, for example, in garden trees.

The tit is difficult to confuse with another bird due to its bright contrasting color. The bird's sides are yellow, it has a black or dark gray cap on its head, and white “cheeks.” Tits are small birds, distant relatives of sparrows (part of the passerine order). The body length of different species varies between 8-18 cm, and the weight rarely reaches 25 grams (on average 14-18 grams).

Tit family

During the breeding season, tits feed on a variety of beetles, caterpillars and other insects, most of which are considered garden pests. Therefore, for any summer resident, making a titmouse out of wood with your own hands is a great idea to save your own energy.

In nature, tits choose hollows of various trees for nesting. However, they can also live in a specially made house on a cultivated tree (apple tree, pear tree, etc.).

For those who visit the dacha with children, making a titmouse with your own hands will not be at all difficult, but it will be entertaining and even fun. In addition, we can simultaneously teach the younger generation to love and respect nature. And further observations of the settlers will train attentiveness and satisfy natural childish curiosity. So we recommend everyone to make a titmouse with their own hands. And not alone.

Why do you need to make a titmouse out of wood?

A house for tits should be made taking into account some of the characteristics of birds. Thus, the use of chipboard, fibreboard and other materials is not advisable. They contain various additives, including resins, which may adversely affect the health of settlers. In addition, the surface of these materials is smooth. When the chicks grow up, they will need to get out of the nest. And it will be very difficult to make your way along a flat wall. Therefore, before you make a titmouse with your own hands, you need to acquire scraps or whole wooden boards, at least one side of which, which is the future inner wall of the house, must be unplaned. You can even make notches yourself for easier movement of birds in the titmouse.

How to make a titmouse with your own hands from wood

Since tits are small birds, the house for them should be small. Titmouse, drawing and dimensions of which presented in the article, is done for the smallest representatives of the passerine order. This is a structure with rectangular walls, one round or square entrance and a pitched roof. You can also make a gable roof and provide additional protection from predators in the form of wire mesh. It all depends on the imagination of the master.

Small titmouse: drawing and dimensions

  1. The house has a square bottom and rectangular walls. The bottom dimensions are 9 by 9 cm, 10 by 10 cm is acceptable. For the walls, only wooden boards 20-32 cm long are taken, the taphole is made at a height of 16-17 cm from the bottom of the structure. The exit diameter is very small: from 2.8 to 3 cm.
  2. For a great tit, the dimensions of the titmouse should be larger: the bottom is 12 cm on a side, the minimum height of the walls is 25 cm, and the entrance is made 3-3.5 cm in diameter. Moreover, it is placed higher by 2-2.5 cm compared to the lesser titmouse.

How to make a titmouse with your own hands from wood

Titmouse drawing and dimensions

What other features does the titmouse have (the drawing and dimensions do not show them)

  • The house must have a removable roof. This is done so that in the fall, when the birds leave the nesting area, they have the opportunity to clean the house. You can make it this way using curtains, or by decorating the inner lid. It is also desirable that the roof extends beyond the walls by 1-2 cm, and in front protrudes above the entrance by 4 cm.
  • The roof can be made with a forward slope. In this case, the front wall will be smaller than the back.
  • When making the back wall of a titmouse, two methods can be used to design the fastening: attach an additional block, the dimensions of which are 10-20 cm larger than the length of the wall. The fastener must have its tip facing outwards. The second option is to make the back wall longer, drill a hole in its upper part for a screw, or attach a ready-made mount.
  • You cannot paint walls inside the house. But outside you can. It is better to choose natural colors: shades of gray, brown, green. To give it a greater resemblance to a natural hollow, the outside of the titmouse can be lightly coated with clay.
  • The entrance can be made square and placed in the corner of the wall, closer to the roof.
  • If the walls are made from more than one board, the bars must be tightly adjusted to each other to prevent drafts.
  • It is easier to make a titmouse from soft wood (pine, larch). The thickness of the blanks is 1.5-2.5 cm.

What is needed to make a titmouse from wood with your own hands

  • Wooden blanks (for walls, bottom, roof);
  • Bar for fastening;
  • Wood nails or screws;
  • A feather drill, a wood crown or a simple drill;
  • Drill or screwdriver;
  • Paint (optional);
  • Saw, hammer, coarse sandpaper.

To make a titmouse, the drawing and dimensions are transferred to wooden scraps or boards. The blanks are cut out. Then the walls are adjusted together. The tap hole is formed by drilling with a feather drill of the required diameter, or by drilling several holes with a regular drill and bringing the diameter to the desired type with a chisel and sandpaper. They fasten the walls and bottom, hang the roof.

How to make a titmouse with your own hands from wood

Making a titmouse with your own hands from wood is not as difficult a task as it might immediately seem. However, the right home is not everything. It is necessary to correctly install the titmouse on the tree.

To do this, choose the leeward side; it is advisable to direct the entrance for tits to the west.

You need to hang the titmouse quite high: at least 2.5 meters from the ground, and better yet even higher.

When fastening, the entire house must be slightly tilted towards the entrance.

This makes it easier for the chicks to be released into the wild. The titmouses need to be placed at a sufficient distance from each other. The distance between the houses is 15-20 m.

Green farming principle

Details for the titmouse:

Using a pencil and ruler, transfer the drawings of the parts onto boards of a suitable size. All parameters are given in centimeters. Using a compass, draw a round inlet hole (taphole) on the front wall exactly in the middle at a height of 18 cm.

Using a jigsaw, carefully cut out the parts along the contour. To cut a tap hole, use a drill to make a through hole inside the intended circle, large enough to insert a jigsaw file. After this, cut along the drawn contour and sand the edges. Lay the fastening bar on its side and drill two through holes in it, large enough to thread a rope or wire through them, with which you are going to secure the finished titmouse to the tree trunk. In my opinion, nailing a bird's house to a tree is barbaric.

Titmouse assembly:

Before you start working, match the parts with the diagram and, without knocking them together, assemble it on the table to make it easier later. When knocking down, be careful and make sure that the unplaned surface of the boards faces the inside of the bird’s house. Adult birds and chicks get out of it by clinging to rough surfaces with their claws, and if the inner surface is smooth, this can threaten the chicks' death. Now let's get to work.

1. Place the fastening strip on the outside of the back wall exactly in the middle and nail it with 2 nails. The nails should protrude outward from the side of the plank, where they should be bent.

2. Nail the resulting workpiece to the side wall with 2 nails from the rear wall.

3. Nail the second side wall in the same way.

4. Take the bottom and, using a hammer, carefully insert it between the three walls so that a flat surface is formed. Nail the bottom to the walls: one nail in the center of the bottom of the side walls and 2 nails on the side of the back wall.

5. Take the front wall, attach it to the resulting workpiece and nail it with 5 nails: 2 in the side walls and 1 in the bottom.

6. Take the lid and draw 4 lines on the inside: three at a distance of 2 cm from the edge and the fourth at a distance of 6 cm, as shown in the dotted line in the diagram. Then place the sleeve on the resulting square and nail it to the lid with 4 nails - one on each side.

7. Close the titmouse with a lid so that a canopy is formed over the entrance. The lid is not nailed to the titmouse, since after the nesting period in the fall it should be cleaned. But the lid must fit tightly so that neither a cat nor a crow, the main enemies of the chicks, can open it. The edges of the sleeve and the edges of the walls inside will most likely have to be smoothed with sandpaper for better alignment.

The type of titmouse, familiar to us all from pictures from books, also implies a pole-perch, but the birds actually don’t need it. Without it, the nest inside the titmouse will be safer, since it will not be so easy for a bird of prey to sit next to the exit, or for a cat to lean on its paw. In addition to the danger from enemies, the pole promotes bird fights between competitors for a convenient nesting site. If you still want to make a perch, plan out an even, strong pole, and drill a blind hole with a diameter the size of the selected pole just below the tap hole. To prevent it from falling out of the hole over time due to fluctuations in temperature and humidity, before inserting the stick, put a little wood glue into the hole.