 I hope you've been enjoying getting out in your garden this week, even though it's a bit chilly, it's still good to get out. We've got a few things we're going to do today, including building a bird box, so that's the plan. We've literally just had a robin come and feed on our bird feeders that we just made. He's just darted in and darted out again, which is lovely to see, so they seem to be enjoying that. I hope you've seen some birds in your garden. They'll be getting ready at the moment, as it's February, to start building their nest, and they're probably getting busy doing that already. Birds are starting to lose their habitats, and we need to help them out. What we can do is build bird boxes to help give them a little bit of shelter and a warm and dry space that they can build their nest. They'll dart in and out and build their nest inside, and they'll do all that work themselves, and they might build something a bit like this. This is actually a black bird's nest that we've got, so I'll show you that. Look how smooth it is on the inside, and made up with moss and bits of grass and leaves. There's all sorts in there, sometimes they use wool from fences that they find from the sheep, or all sorts of other bits of lichen and all sorts that goes in there. Imagine building that without any hands. They would do that all with their mouths, very clever. So that's a black bird's nest, we think. This kind of box is designed with this size hole, a black bird or a thrush wouldn't get in there, but you might get a great tit or a cold tit, or you might get sparrows building their nests in there. So if you have a bigger hole and a slightly bigger box, you might attract black birds and thrushes. And if you have an open fronted box that's just half a piece of wood here, you're more likely to get things like robins and wagtails. So there's lots of different designs. I'm just going to show you this one, you could look up your own, and I'm going to tell you how to make this. Before we get started, there's a few tools we need and a few materials. So let me just run through what we're going to need. First of all, we're going to need a tape measure. There we go, and a pencil, very important. Make sure it's nice and sharp, and our measurements as well. So I've got those written down and ready to go. The other thing we're going to need is a hammer, which is good fun doing some hammering. If an adult size hammer is too big for you and a bit too heavy, you can either hold it further up or you could get one of these smaller ones. So this is a great little mini hammer for mini people. So one of those, we need a pair of scissors. We need a bike inner tube, and we need a selection of two different types of nails, and this is a drill bit, so that's for putting the hole in. So we're going to need one of those as well. Types of nails we've got, two different types. So we've got these, these are lost head nails, and we're going to use those for the main building of the box, and then these as well. So we've got these, they're a bit like thumbtack nails really, and so we're going to put the hinge on with those. So what else do we need? Oh, we need a saw, definitely need one of those. Find a saw that you feel comfortable with, and remember you're going to need an adult to help you with this one. So that's really important, and you might want to keep it in its sheath as well. So when you're moving things around, you don't cut your hands. And lastly, a drill if you've got one, or a hand drill. And if you don't have one, see if you can borrow one off someone. And that's for pre-drilling the holes, and making it a bit easier for you to hammer those nails in. If you don't have a drill, you can do it without, so don't worry. The only thing you might struggle with is the hole at the front, but again, there's ways around that as well. So if you've got one of those great, and if not, don't worry, you can still do this project. This is the hinge. That's what the bike inner tube is used for, and you can see that the thumbtack-style nails are used to put those in. The hinge is really useful because it means that you can open the lid up and not whilst there's anything nesting in there, you wouldn't look in it then. But after the birds have fledged and the nest box isn't in use, it means you can clear out the old nest and make it, freshen it up for the next bird that comes and nests here. Another thing you'll notice is there's a hole up here. So you can nail these straight into a tree or into a post. The other thing you can do is put a piece of wire around it and attach it to a tree that way, but I'm going to show you that a bit later. But I've pre-drilled a hole because I'm going to nail this to a post in my garden. So I've got this plank from a local builders' yard down the road. You might have something in your shed or your garage or somewhere lying around. And this plank is about 1m80 long. It's 15cm across and a centimetre and a half thick. So that's roughly what you need. Next up we need to make a workbench. So we haven't got an official workbench, but you could get a workmate or something like that. Or we've got this little set up here, which is just an old milk crate on the bucket. It's actually relatively sturdy, so that'll do. And it means I can get on the side, hold the plank steady and saw through here. So make sure you've got something that's safe and fairly steady and get an adult to help you. It's just started snowing. So I'm going to put another layer on because it's pretty chilly up here. Even though we've got a fire on and a nice hot cup of tea. But an extra layer is always a good thing. So I'm going to measure this first section. I want to get all the different sections of the bird box out of one plank. And what we're going to do is measure it once and then a good carpenter will always measure twice and cut once. So we need to double check them all. So it's 21. And on this side will be 20. And then 20 and 20. So 12, 20, 350, 35. So now that that's all measured out, I'm going to join the lines. And what I'm going to use is a back of the saw. This is a really good straight line. And if you line it up with this part of the saw handle, it actually goes at the perfect 90 degree angle that you need to draw along. So I'm going to line that up with the side of the plank and draw straight across. OK. So you can see on each measurement, I've drawn the line across using the back of my saw as a guide and a ruler. And we've got all the measurements going along clearly marked. And then this diagonal one, which is the two sides. It'll make sense in a minute. What I always make sure I do is I measure twice and cut once. That's a really important rule to remember. So always go through and check your measurements a second time and make sure it's all accurately marked out. You definitely want to get an adult to help you with this part of the process. So we're going to be using the saw, which is great fun. Don't be afraid of using tools because they're great to use as long as you're using them safely. I'm going to hold the saw in my hand and, on my other hand, my non-working hand right out the way. But I probably would want someone else to hold this plank for me to hold it still. So I'm going to keep that non-working hand right out the way and then what I'm going to do to start sawing is to pull back three or four times to start making a groove in the right spot. Once I've got a bit of a groove there, you can see that the saw can fit in. I'm going to start going backwards and forwards, holding it really still. And just go at a steady pace. There's no rush. And if you want to, you can even put your foot on here to hold it. Try and keep the saw in line with the pencil line that you've marked. If you keep a finger, I think I've always shown that if you hold a finger straight, then that helps as well. If it starts to go off a bit, just try and bring it back round, but try and catch it early so you don't go too far off line. You can see I'm going off a little bit there, but it doesn't matter. I can bring it back a bit. There we go. That's not bad. I'm going to put that to one side and move my cup of tea. Again, make sure it's really sturdy. Hold it tight, and then do those three or four drawbacks just to get that groove going on. And then keeping in line, keeping your hand away, let the saw do the work. If you push too hard, it'll jolt and it'll be really hard. Don't push too hard, but let the teeth of the saw do the work. Next thing I'm going to do is name all these pieces so I know exactly what they are. This one's the back, the side, the front, and that's the roof. Now I know what they are. You can see that the edge is just a little bit rough, so I've got a bit of sandpaper, and not that the birds are really going to mind, but I'm just going to sand that down and just have a slightly tighter fit when it all goes together. OK, now that I've sanded down all the different parts, I'm going to start thinking about putting the sides onto the back of the bird box. So we've got these two diagonal parts. I'm going to get the long side and put that against the edge of the back. Make sure it's lined up so I can run my finger along here and see that it's all lined up and it's lined up at the end as well. So here, make sure that's nice and straight. What I'm going to do to help myself a bit is to draw around that part. That means I can see where I can put my little pre-drilled holes. OK, I'll do that on here again. So lining that up with the back and make sure it's flush with the back and the sides and flush here and then draw around there. OK, and I'm going to put my holes in here and here and here. OK. That's if you're going to pre-drill the holes. If you're not going to pre-drill the holes you can go straight in to hammering. What I would do is use this as a guide and then you know that when you're hammering in you're going to go straight in the middle of this plank here. OK. I'm going to pre-drill these holes so you might want to watch this next bit. With the help of an adult you can use this kind of drill or you might want to use a hand drill or your holes. So just in and out in and out keeping your non-working hand out right out the way. OK. If you're going to be drilling into the workbench just make sure it's not like your kitchen table or something like that make sure it's a rough old bit of wood. So now it's time to put all the bits together. What we're going to start off with is the long bit which is back as written here and we've got these two sides with the diagonal tops. OK. We've pre-drilled our holes and we're going to get this side and I'm going to pop this on top. This is quite tricky to do just on your own so try and get someone to help you you should have an adult around to give you a hand or maybe a brother or sister now. We're going to get our nails and I'm going to make sure that this is absolutely flush with the side and flush with the bottom end as well. OK. Get my hammer and very carefully just start tapping and then if you feel more confident you can really start to hit it in. I started with the middle one there. So making sure that's nice and flush I've got our first nail in and I'm going to go for another one. Don't be tempted to put these in your mouth. My brother did that once and he swallowed it so keep your nails in a bowl make sure they go in nice and straight. If it starts to go off to one side you can either restart it or just tap it into place remember lots of little taps is better than one massive one. OK. Starting to come together keep your thumb right out the way don't want to hit that because it really hurts. OK. You can see we've got that attached there that's not bad and we're going to do the other side now it's a bit easier. That first one is quite tricky. Make sure it's nice and flush again running your hands along the side that's really important we don't want it sitting in like that we want it to be right on the edge. There we go Next thing we're going to do is get the base so the base is the smallest part and that is just going to wedge in here it looks like it's not going to fit but it's just very snug again just knock it down with your hammer and you want to make sure it's flush it needs to come back a bit you can tap it into place using your hammer there it's nice not bad I can pre-drill my holes and make sure they're halfway those should be halfway between the width of the plank flip it over I'm going to do the other make sure that's flush you can just tap those into place now nice and easy so that's in place I'm not looking too bad this is the front part that's going to go on here now this is a part if you don't have a paddle drill like this then what we can do is you could just cut this off so if I draw a line across and show you that you could just cut the front down just a straight hole so that there's a rectangular hole going in to the box so if you chopped that off there then you would have a nice open front for the birds to go in and out and robins and wagtails really like that so that's one option the other option is if you do have one of these is you can drill a hole a round hole for the birds to fly in and out of you want the bird hole to be about two thirds of the way up so just just over half way up and in the centre you're definitely going to need an adult to help you with this pit because it's quite dangerous that in place with my foot I'm going to go half way through you can see where the end has come out here and then we're going to go back through from the other side there we go we've got our hole in the front seeing as we've had a robin coming in and out of our garden a few times this morning he keeps darting in and out I've decided that instead of having a round hole in the front robins won't use those we're going to do the open fronted design so it's going to look like that and when the roof goes on you can see it's got a lovely little slot to fly in and out of and for some reason that's what robins prefer to go in and out of so I'm just going to pre-drill this swap my drill bits over and you never quite know what you're going to get otherwise in this country the nice and easy and the fronts on there we go nice little cosy hole for a nest in there last thing we're going to do is put the roof on with our special bike in a tube hinge you could use a piece of leather or just something strong and flexible that will bridge the gap between the roof and the back to make sure we get the right length of inner tube I'm just going to measure across here doesn't have to be absolutely exact and I'm going to draw a line across snip that off there and then cut it up for the inside useful way of recycling old inner tubes there we go going to hammer that onto there and then I'm going to so I'll put half of it onto this side and then I'll put half of it onto the back and this is where you need your thumbtack style nails so I'm going to put a line across here and then lay the whole bird box on its back and then pop that onto there and then a few more nails in there you can put as many as you like in here make it nice and secure keep your thumbs out the way it's very easy to hit your fingers or thumbs using these short ones and there we have it we've finished it our robin's nest box and the things you can do to this if you want to for a bit of fun is you can decorate the outside of yours and draw all sorts of pictures and home sweet home pictures on the inside that's always quite good fun and I'm going to put this up in the woodshed so it's going to be tucked away in there and so what I'm going to do is just drill a hole in the top of here so that I can attach it with a nail right let's go and put this up robins would really like to be in very sheltered places so they like making their nests in very thick bushes or in garages and sheds we had one in our garage when I was a kid so I'm going to put this up in our wood store it's nice and sheltered in here but it's if you were going to attach this to a tree you'd want to have the bird box facing between north and east so you might want to use a compass work out which way north east is and you want to have it facing in that direction and that means that the wind which is normally coming from the south west doesn't blow straight into the box and also it shelters it a bit from direct sunshine because you don't want the box to get too hot so I'm just going to put this up in here anyway so fingers crossed that our little robin that keeps popping in is going to notice that we've made a little nest box for him but sometimes it can take a long time for birds to really feel at home enough to make a nest in your garden miracles overnight but you never know and you're definitely upping your chances we're really looking forward to seeing your creations so don't forget to share them with us using the hashtag back garden bushcraft you could be in with a chance of winning a fire raven goodie bag and at the end of the week one lucky family could win a whole family of backpacks