On Saturday, August 27, a handy crew of Evergreen Audubon members gathered at Rachel and Dave Hutchison’s home to address the growing bird housing crisis—also known as the Evergreen Audubon annual nestbox build day! As the Evergreen-Conifer-Idaho Springs area develops human housing and mitigates our forested lands and existing homesites for fire prevention, the nesting trees and holes that are crucial for our breeding resident and summer migrant birds disappear. We build them in three sizes, using the best quality materials and up-to-date specifications, then sell them for the price of materials only, giving our human neighbors the opportunity to provide nesting cavities for chickadees, nuthatches, bluebirds, flickers, and other bird species.
Nestbox Build Day is the culmination of incredible efforts by many people. Weeks ahead of the actual build, we purchase the raw cedar, screws, and predator guards necessary to build safe and sturdy nestboxes. A big part of the prep is cutting all the parts to size and marking them for assembly. The prep crew (Andrea Furlong, Dwight Souder, Rachel Hutchison, Chris Marr, Tom Ryon, Melissa Leasia, and I) put in hours, cutting parts, marking them, drilling mounting holes, branding them with Evergreen Audubon information, then sorting and packing them for ready use on build day.
On build day, Rachel and Dave Hutchison had everything ready and in place to make the assembly of the nest boxes as efficient and pleasant as possible. Our many volunteers worked hard, focused on the task, helped each other, and enjoyed the time together chatting and complimenting each other’s work. This was our incredible build crew: Linda Bolinger, Cherie Cullen, Don Cullen, Ann Dodson, Ed Dodson, Linda Engelhart, Catie Fowler, Andrea Furlong, Ed Furlong, Barbara Galgano, Vincent Galgano, Gladys Hartmann, Don Hartmann, Rachel Hutchison, Dave Hutchison, Tim Leake, Kathy Madison, Ted Ning, and Dwight Souder. Many thanks to all for your efforts on behalf of nesting birds!
And boy do those results show! Our build team put together 51 Chickadee/Nuthatch boxes, 69 Bluebird boxes and 30 Flicker boxes, a build day record! Our storage area is packed to the rafters with boxes ready to be sold at Evergreen’s Alternative Gift Fair, November 12 and 13, 2022, from 9 am to 4 pm at Evergreen Lutheran Church. Be sure to let your friends and neighbors know that these high-quality, handcrafted boxes make great gifts, are very reasonably priced, and sell quickly. Boxes can also be purchased on our website at: https://evergreenaudubon.org/shop/
Again, on behalf of the birds, many thanks to all the volunteers who put in the time and effort to make our Nestbox Build so successful this year. Special thanks to Dave and Rachel Hutchison for hosting the build day, and to Andrea Furlong who was willing to share our home and yard with all the wood that needed to be prepared, and worked so many extra hours helping me cut parts, and prepared great lunches for the prep crews!