Bird boxes house starlings
Wild starlings looking to nest in a Coastal Taranaki town are finding fabulous homes, thanks to an industrious retired couple.
Ron and Nevis Brewer, of Opunake, have made dozens of starling boxes for people around the town in the past two years.
‘‘I lost count after 60,’’ Ron, a retired stock agent and farmer, said.
Ron, 87, builds the plywood boxes in his garage workshop – the car lives out on the driveway – gives them two coats of undercoat, then brings them inside for Nevis, 88, to decorate with colourful flowers and leaves.
‘‘I can make about two in a day, but I don’t work every long hours,’’ he said.
‘‘I’ll keep making them as long as people want them. It keeps me occupied and that’s a big thing.’’
Nevis is self-taught. Apart from attending a few evening art classes some years back, she had never had time to learn painting.
She works in acrylic, painting flowers and vines on the fronts and sides. Sometimes the designs are quite complicated; others, like the one in their own backyard, are quite simple.
Sadly, failing eyesight means Ron can’t see her work on the finished boxes.
‘‘My eyesight is that bad, I can’t even read or write,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ve got a talking tape measure and I go by that.’’
He lost part of his right thumb while cutting plywood with a bench-mounted circular saw on the first day of the 2020 lockdown.
‘‘He came inside with this bloody finger,’’ Nevis said. ‘‘He had cut the tip of his right thumb off. I had to drive him to hospital in New Plymouth. There was nobody on the road.’’
Ron’s thumb has healed now, and he still uses the saw, with timber jigs he has made up to ensure straight edges and plumb corners.
The pair, who celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary on April 1, have recovered from Covid and are back on their feet.
Their foray into bird box building began after a family tragedy.
Ron had got interested in woodwork after he and a friend felled and milled a row of macrocarpa trees on the farm, and he used some of the timber to build a set of stables for their daughter, Gail Drought.
Then he turned to smaller projects, making all the tables in their home apart from the dining table.
He also made a large letterbox for Gail, who received a lot of mail, after the plastic one she had bought was stolen from her farm gate.
After Gail’s death five years ago, the farm was sold, and some time later the new owner asked Ron if they could donate the painted letterbox to be used as a community library in the ‘‘Secret Garden’’ on the clifftop near their home that is part of the Opunake Loop Trail.
‘‘Then they asked me to make a second letterbox for the children’s books,’’ he said.
‘‘And I decided to make them some bird boxes as well.’’
Since then, pretty starling houses have popped up on fences and poles all around the town, including some along its community walkway.
Ron said he does not offer them to farmer friends because starlings are often unwelcome due to their habit of building nests inside farm machinery, which can start fires.
Ron, a former Opunake and Coastal Community Board member, was presented with a South Taranaki District Council community Award in 2020 for his service to the community.
Although they have been asked many times if people can buy them, the boxes are not for sale, Ron said.
‘‘We mainly give them away to people who have helped in Opunake.’’