With the diminishment of certain kinds of habitat, including convenient holes in old-growth trees, some birds may have a harder time finding places to nest. We can help!
A wood duck box installed north of Chocorua Lake. Photo: Lynne Flaccus
On Saturday, August 12 from 3-4PM, or a little later depending on how many boxes you build, join Chocorua Lake Conservancy (CLC) Stewardship Director Debra Marnich and Matt Griffin of Stoney Brooke Sawyers for a Bird Box Building Workshop at Stoney Brooke Sawyers, 1853 Chocorua Mountain Highway, in Chocorua. Large trees with available nesting cavities were once abundant on the landscape. Now, because of development and habitat loss, they have become scarce. This results in increased competition for appropriate nesting cavities, leading to the conservation practice of building and installing nest boxes for species who might need them. Come build a box or two for CLC to use on our conservation land (and take home a wood engraving of a bluebird, wood duck, or kestrel as a gift), and build another one to take home to an appropriate habitat near you! We will be building bluebird boxes, the most versatile habitat-wise (and they provide nesting opportunities for more than just bluebirds), wood duck boxes for locations near water, and a few kestrel boxes—appropriate habitat for these is rarer—and we can help you figure out what would be best for where you live.
Please bring a hammer and a screw gun if you have them—especially a screw gun! Otherwise, tools will be provided. No experience is necessary, we will walk you through the process. Kids ages 6 and up are welcome with a caregiver. It’s free to build boxes for CLC; boxes to bring home are by donation, suggested: $5 to $20. Feel free to bring sun and bug protection, a hat, a water bottle, and snacks. Please register in advance below so that we can have sufficient materials for everyone.
Installing bluebird boxes at Charlotte C. Browne Woods. Photo: Lynne Flaccus
Matt Griffin founded Stoney Brooke Sawyers in 2021 after a 30 year career in the investment industry in Boston. Matt’s childhood summers were spent in the woods north of Chocorua Lake building a family home with his Dad and making woodworking projects in the basement. When he inherited the house in 2020, he decided to turn his lifelong passion for all things wood into a business, so he traded the computer monitor and calculator for a sawmill and woodworking shop.
CLC Stewardship Director Debra Marnich holds a BS in Zoology and an MS in Forestry. Her major interests and professional focus areas include combining wildlife and forestry practices to manage for both sound silvicultural and optimum wildlife habitat, creating early successional and bird nesting habitat, pollinator habitat creation, promoting small diverse farms local food production/agriculture, promoting land conservation and protection, environmental education, and integrating all resources concerns to create a balanced conservation system.
Banner image: Wood duck eggs in a CLC nest box. Photo: Debra Marnich