What is a Winter Roosting Box?
A Roosting Box for Birds Gives Them a Sheltered Place to Hide From the Weather
A roost box is designed to accommodate lots of birds and to keep the heat in. Birds that use nest boxes in summer will readily use a roosting box in cold weather.
Perhaps you have looked out through a frosty window on a beautiful but bitterly cold winter day, or listened to the wind howl on a freezing February night, and wondered how the birds are faring out there in the weather. If you had a winter roosting box outside, you might envision a gathering of chickadees huddled together or a heap of bluebirds waiting out the cold temperatures inside the box.
A roosting box is simply a sturdy box, similar to a nesting box, that provides shelter for birds during the winter months. While the nesting box is usually an empty cavity with a hole near the top, a roosting box often has shelves or perches inside and a hole near the base. Roosting boxes can be quite large and can provide shelter for lots of birds at once.
The hole is located at the bottom in order to keep as much heat inside the box as possible – remember heat rises, so a hole at the top would just let warmth escape into the outside air. Shelves or perches at various heights inside allow the birds to make use of all the space in the box.
If you have blue birds in your area in the winter months, they’ll likely make good use of your roost box. For bluebirds, experienced birders say the shelves can be omitted and the hole placed near the top as in a regular nesting box. Bluebirds, it seems, don’t bother to perch: they simply keep each other warm in a heap on the floor. This location might be rather drafty if the entrance hole were nearby, so a higher entrance works better.
Chickadees, wrens, nuthatches, titmice, woodpeckers, and bluebirds will all use a winter roosting box – the same birds that nest in cavities and nesting boxes in the summer. If you’re expecting the smaller birds, do include perches and make the entrance hole about 1 ¼ inch (32mm). For bluebirds and Hairy Woodpeckers, the entrance hole should be about 1 ½ inches (38mm), and if you have woodpeckers on your property, cut a few groves in the inside surfaces (where there’s space away from perches and shelves) so that they can cling.
Hang a winter roosting box in a tree or on a pole, preferably with its back to the prevailing winds and in a sheltered location. If you have such a location in view of a window, you’ll be able to enjoy the warming sight of birds arriving for the night and leaving again in the morning. For bluebirds, hang the box quite low – about six feet (180cm) from the ground. For other birds hang the box about 12 feet up (3 2/3 meters).
Birds stay warm by shivering and puffing up their feathers, by finding warm sheltered places to wait out cold, wet, and windy weather, and by consuming high fat foods to provide lots of energy. Help your backyard birds get through the winter by hanging out a suet cake and filling your feeders with oily seed and nuts.
Other content about roosting boxes:
How to Make a Winter Roosting Box
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