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🐦🐝 Community birdhouses & insect hotels
Building and properly installing nest boxes for birds and insect hotels/small habitats for pollinators and beneficial insects, to make up for the lack of hollow trees and wild nooks in towns, helping both birds and insects breed and overwinter.
When should you do this?
Install from autumn through early spring, before the nesting/swarming season (March-April)
What will you need?
- Untreated board (at least 2 cm thick) for the nest boxes
- Bamboo tube, drilled logs, straw, pine cones for the insect hotel
- Screws or nails, a hinge for the roof
- Hammer or screwdriver, drill
- Tape measure
- Wire mesh to secure the insect hotel elements
How to get started?
- Decide which group you're building for: cavity-nesting birds (e.g. tits, sparrows) or pollinating/beneficial insects (wild bees, ladybugs, earwigs).
- For a nest box, choose the entry-hole diameter typical for the species (e.g. 32 mm for great tits, 34 mm for sparrows).
- For an insect hotel, gather materials with varying cavity sizes: bamboo tube, drilled logs, straw, pine cones.
- Cut and screw together the frame of the box or insect hotel, using untreated wood.
- Hinge the nest box's roof so it's easy to clean, and don't add a perch below the entry hole.
- Pack the insect hotel's compartments tightly with the various hollow materials, securing them with wire mesh.
- Mount it 2-4 meters up (nest box) or in a sunny, sheltered, ground-level spot (insect hotel).
- Check and clean or restock the elements in autumn or early spring, before the nesting/breeding season.
Useful tips
- Don't place too many boxes or hotels close together — both are territorial or resource-dependent.
- Shelter the insect hotel from rain with a small roof, and face it southeast toward the morning sun.
- A metal plate around the entry hole protects against woodpeckers enlarging it.
Ready? Start a community birdhouses & insect hotels project, or join one already running near you.