My first bluebird houses were the standard plastic ones until I upgraded to the Peterson House which was quite successful last year. Bluebirds are overwintering here and they were feeding on the meal worm/peanut butter suet over these past three days of below freezing weather (also saw a starling or two which I apparently successfully chased off). Except for a blue jay and wood peckers, the bluebirds have the feeding station to themselves and hope to keep it that way. They check the Peterson houses and hope to convert them to a brooding house with some food inside to encourage them to nests early in the season.

The Peterson house design is an excellent design. The few modifications I would add are adding a hinge to the lid to open from the top, some window aluminum mesh screens over the vent holes and some drain holes on the floor section of the house. The interior side of the door does not have any additional striations, but the angle for climbing out is not as extreme as in a usual house design. There were no fledgling issues last year.

This Christmas (2022), we had a bomb cyclone of freezing weather with 3 full days below freezing (no snow) and many birds came to visit the meal worm/peanut butter suet including 45 bluebirds traveling together (potentially siblings). They also seem to check out the Peterson Houses when they stop by. So I thought I might try to convert them into brooding houses by swapping the door with a bottom opening and adding insulation all around. We'll see how that turns out in the next video (and hopefully see through a window if any birds are using the brooding house for shelter).