Customer Reviews

Build Your Own Birdhouses and Feeders: From Simple, Natural Designs to Spectacular, Customized Houses and Feeders

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Perkins begins the book with some backround bird and woodworking information that will be useful for the beginner. He then gets into plans for 19 houses and 7 feeders.

Each project includes color photos of the completed house or feeder - these are not just the figments of a writer's imagination. There are detailed, measured, exploded color drawings of each house. His designs include several different methods of access for cleaning out the houses after each nesting period. I particularly like the "slide" designs - no tools or dropped screws to worry about.

Some of these houses are so pretty, I don't know if I would want to put them out in the yard. I suppose with a little imagination, you could scale his designs to meet the needs of a variety of species. He has a breif, one page chart showing entrance sizes for some birds. He also show "slot" as well as round entrance options on some of his designs. I still keep referring back to Scott D. Campbell's "The Complete Book of Birdhouse Construction for Woodworkers" as a more complete technical reference. (See that review on Amazon.)

Overall, this is a very good book on birdhouses, very inspirational for the imaginative bird "landlord." This book is profusely illustrated with color photos and drawings; it could be a "coffee table" book if you don't get it filled with sawdust!

No place in this book gives hole sizes for the birds you want to attract. Birds are very fussy about the size of the hole and also the size of the nesting cavity. I would consider this the worst book I have ever read on building bird house and feeders. I am glad I looked at it before I gave it to a friend. Not one practical bird feeder for wet and inclement weather. Beautiful bird houses, but no birds!

Bought this book for my husband and am still waiting for my bird house, but he did enjoy looking at the pictures.lol

The bird houses are pretty basic designs. I was hoping for some designs a bit more advanced.
Good for beginers - not so good for advanced woodworkers

The book is full of information anyone needs to build birdhouses, down to the last detai (hole sizes for differnt birds", etc. If you build birdhouses as a hobby, you need this book !