We made a Native Nesting Box out of Corflute

...and now you can too with our DIY stencil & guide

We give this project a kid-friendly rating of 3.5 stars

Given the tools involved in this project, we recommend adult supervision throughout every stage of this project. In our previous post we'd talked about what happens when Corflute® is left in direct sunlight. So we recommend properly scoping out your backyard before embarking on this build and finding a nice, shady spot, high in the canopy for the nesting box to eventually reside.

Drill (including hole saw drill bit)
Stanley Knife
Ruler
Pencil

2 x sheets of standard election size Corflute® @ 60cm (w) x 90cm (h) x 0.5cm (d)
27 x small zip ties
Stainless steel hanging wire

Draft up the following rectangles on your Corflute®. To minimise waste, make sure to line up your rectangles to the edges of your sheet.

4 x sides @ 20cm x 50m 1 x base @ 20cm x 23c 1 x top @ 20cm x 28cm 1 x front guard @ 20cm x 27cm 2 x sides guards cut from the same rectangle i.e. 20cm x 28.5cm then diagonally divided into 2 triangles.

Tip – if you’re using a sheet of Corflute® that has eyelets, like ours, make sure to line up your base to one of those corners. This way the eyelet can act as a drainage hole once assembled.
Cut and drill as per suggested layout. The size of your pilot holes will depend on the width of your zip ties.
For the hole in the “2 of 4” side panel, we used a hole saw drill bit but you can also use a Stanley knife to cut this.
The optional cuts are there for the option of creating a ladder for the birds.
To construct, we started with the body first, then the base, followed by the top and guards before finishing with our bottle top ladder.
We decided to go with the bottle tops (spike side up) instead of cutting out a ladder because we thought they looked a bit more interesting.
Once it’s all done and you’ve attached hanging wire to the back, look for somewhere safe and high to hang your next, away from lizards and other predators to sniff out.