A place to call their own

Here’s to our fine feathered friends. Despite the songs they warble too early in the A.M., don’t we owe them something for teaching us to nest?

But who has the time to make a birdhouse out of Popsicle sticks, especially when there are so many ready-made products for bird housing, feeding and bathing? Among the most attractive is an orb birdhouse made of unglazed earthenware, designed by Stan Bitters in 1959. (It was shown in the Pasadena Museum of Art’s “California Design” series.) When Scott Nadeau of the mid-century furniture gallery Ten 10 discovered that it still was in production, he created a companion piece. Using a steel dish, he crafted a staked feeder and birdbath to complement the Bitters birdhouses that have been flying out of his Silver Lake Boulevard shop.

Crave rustic authenticity? Check out www.abirdsworld.com, which offers the Riverwood Tiverton, an imported English birdhouse with a roof of varnished wheat reeds. If Shaker simplicity is more your speed, the Northern flicker nesting box from www.backyard bird.com will suit a number of species.

Or you can spear an apple or an ear of corn on the Cone Birdfeeder, a rubber rope with frosted-glass weights by designer Pernille Vea or set out seeds in whimsical feeders designed to look like one of the bridges of Madison County.