It’s difficult to slow down and connect with nature when you’re living in a city, especially one as big as Raleigh. But the J.C. Raulston Arboretum is a small sanctuary for wildlife lovers across our community, and this weekend it went to the birds. The arboretum hosted its twelfth annual birdhouse competition, filling up a display room with a mini bird city created by artists, bird-watchers and amateurs alike.
The competitors were judged on craftsmanship and imagination-some entries included a birdhouse made from a ukulele, a delicately constructed lighthouse and a birdhouse made of stained glass. Whimsicality also seemed a common theme for birdhouse enthusiasts-one birdhouse was made to look like a cell and was titled “For Jailbirds,” while another titled “Songbird” was made out of records.
“First and foremost it should be a true, functioning birdhouse,” Chris Glenn, organizer of the event, said. “It should look good, and sometimes the serious ones are very artistic in nature.”
The competition included sections for both adults and children, and the children’s category has been adapted into the school system. It has been a class project for local second graders since its first year and they use it to study life cycles.
Examples of the second graders work were diverse and colorful-the array of birdhouses included a castle, a basketball and a few made out of bottles.
“They love doing this project, because it’s something hands-on where they get to express their creativity and have a bonding experience at home with their parents,” Tymkin said.
For example, one child created a massive bird-mansion humorously titled “Hummingbird lane” after the world’s tiniest bird. On her “about” page, she wrote that she was very proud of it, as it was the first project she had done with her dad.
“The parameters were whatever they could find at home-however they wanted to construct it was up to them,” Tymkin said.
However, the children were encouraged to build their birdhouses without buying anything to learn about reducing, reusing and recycling.
“We try to have a global connection for the kids … Originally my thought was to get the kids connected-get them looking outside the school to connect to the city,” Sue Baird, a second grade teacher at Hunter GT Magnet Elementary School said.
This led to birdhouses created out of bottle caps, pipes, paper-mache and milk cartons, all held together with lots of paste and paint . One second grader even made theirs out of saved bread bag ties. They wrote on their “about” page that their mother always saved them so that they wouldn’t choke the birds at the landfill. Now they were able to do something with the dangerous garbage that would help the wildlife instead.
The Wake Audubon Society, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and the Blue Bird Society sponsored the event, and representatives of the organizations attended the event to discuss how to attract bluebirds, their nesting requirements, and where to place birdhouses.
However, the arboretum doesn’t just work with the bluebird society for the birdhouse competition-it’s part of the bluebird trail, and there are always somewhere between five and 10 bluebird houses around the arboretum. Besides bluebirds, doves and hawks are also common in the arboretum.
“The arboretum is a very popular birding destination … We were actually voted the number one site to bird in Raleigh,” Glenn said.
