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FOCUS ON TEXAS
Birdhouses
By Dacia Rivers
Texas bird lovers sent in flocks of photos this month, proudly displaying their unique collections of homes for their feathered friends. Many Texans’ yards are home to several birdhouses, which run the gamut from handmade homes of recycled materials to the most impromptu avian abodes.
Using his brother-in-law’s old boot and a license plate, Pedernales Electric Cooperative member Gustave “Buzz” Heye built this unique birdhouse by hand. “It hangs from a live oak in my front yard in Bulverde and occasionally even has occupants,” Heye said.
Ron Werchan, Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative member, snapped this colorful photo on a recent trip to Boerne. He took the picture at a store called Buy-Buy-Birdie while his wife was inside buying a purple birdhouse.
Dorrett Townsend, a member of Central Texas Electric Cooperative, sent in this photo of a cactus wren’s nest. The prickly pear grew in a fencerow on his property to a height of more than 6 feet tall, making this birdhouse a safe one. Townsend has used this scene as a subject in several of his paintings over the years.
Pedernales Electric Cooperative member Carey Collier grew, dried and decorated this gourd and made it into a birdhouse to give to a friend. While the house was hanging outside to dry, a bird moved in and Collier decided to keep it. “My reward was watching baby birdies emerge and fly away some weeks later,” she said.
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