For the birds

The empty doorknob hole is presumably the entrance to this birdhouse someone built in my neighbourhood. I don't know if the fake bird would attract or repel customers.

It was a birdhouse made with door hardware that got me taking pictures of birdhouses this summer. Someone in a beautifully maintained Dunbar property had gone to some trouble to build a birdhouse with an entrance hole consisting of the empty space where a doorknob once poked out. The slot for the key was still there, and the figure of a bird sat on a perch beneath, presumably hoping for company.

I don't know if this structure, which was prettily located in greenery at the entrance to the property, was functional or pure decoration, but after I saw it, I started noticing birdhouses here, there and everywhere, even in dense and busy Vancouver. Here are some of my finds:

A trio of birdhouses sits atop a pole in a traffic circle on Blenheim Street in Vancouver. The city forced the builders to get rid of most of the greenery at the bottom in favour of directional traffic signs.

A closer look at the Blenheim birdhouses. Located on a steep part of the street, they can look quite striking against the backdrop of ocean and mountains as you head north down the hill.

Another birdhouse in my area that does double duty by holding address numbers. This one looks like it's been used.

Nothing fancy here, but the birds probably don't mind. These birdhouses are just across the fence at our Saltspring property. They were built by our neighbour, who believes in accommodating the wildlife.

John built two birdhouses for our Saltspring house, and birds have made good use of both. This one sits on top of an unused chimney at the top of our house. 

The other birdhouse -- echoing the colour scheme of the bigger house -- sits above the kitchen door. Its twittering inhabitants intrigue Mr. Darcy, and the parent birds are always flitting over our heads as they come to feed their young.

If you want to go fancy -- and expensive -- birdhouses like this are for sale at the Saltspring Saturday market. 

Birdhouses are hard to photograph because they're often so far away, but I tried to capture this one in a back yard in Kitsilano. It's the same colour as the blue deck of the house. 

I can't guarantee this is a birdhouse -- it might be for bats -- but it was too scenically located to pass up. It's on a trail along the Fraser River, in the Southlands area of Vancouver.