Chickadee, titmouse and nuthatch houses

One box, two holes

All five designs share a box 5½ by 5½ in inside and 8 in deep. A 1⅛ in hole is NestWatch’s size for both chickadees; the Tufted Titmouse and both nuthatches get 1¼ in. Their heights, directions and spacing differ, as the cards above show.

The hole’s height above the floor is not in our sources: take it from NestWatch’s plan for each bird.

Where each one nests

Chickadees: woods or a yard with mature trees, 5 to 15 ft up for the Black-capped, 4 to 15 ft for the Carolina. Tufted Titmouse: mature broadleaf woods, 5 to 15 ft. White-breasted Nuthatch: mature woods, 5 to 20 ft, facing south. Red-breasted Nuthatch: mature conifer woods, 5 to 15 ft.

Nuthatches use boxes less often than chickadees and titmice: the White-breasted now and then, mostly where old trees with holes are scarce, and the Red-breasted rarely. A Red-breasted Nuthatch at your feeder in winter does not mean one nests nearby.

How far apart

NestWatch gives each bird its own spacing between boxes: 650 ft for the Black-capped Chickadee, 30 ft for the Carolina Chickadee, 580 ft for the Tufted Titmouse, 1,040 ft for the White-breasted Nuthatch and 150 ft for the Red-breasted. These are distances between boxes for the same bird, not a rule between, say, a chickadee box and a bluebird box. The two chickadee figures are far apart; we give both as NestWatch publishes them.

Wood shavings

NestWatch puts 1 in of wood shavings in the Black-capped Chickadee box and both nuthatch boxes. The Carolina Chickadee does little digging and does not need them. For the titmouse, our sources give no bedding.

Which chickadee is yours?

Where you live tells you more than the bird does: Black-capped chickadees across the North, Carolina chickadees across the Southeast, and both in a narrow band where they meet. The lookalikes guide has the marks and the songs.

Feeding them

All five come to feeders for black-oil sunflower, peanuts and suet.