Coveside Birdhouses: White Pine Nest Boxes and Roost Boxes

The Convertible Winter Roost is a small box, 12.5 inches high, 7 wide and 9 deep, with a 1 1/2 inch entrance and a floor of 5 by 5 inches. Inside, three perches are said to take at least six birds on a cold night. Flip the front and the same box becomes a nest box with the hole at the top. It is a fair introduction to what Coveside builds: plain wooden habitat, sized for a particular job, in thick white pine.

What the brand is, as far as sources show

Coveside Conservation Products made wooden bird and bat habitats and feeders. A short Maine news index entry from 1996 reports that its business was destroyed by a fire the previous August and that A-Po-G of Falmouth bought it on April 1, 1996. The entry repeats the claim that Coveside was the only company making a habitat for every species of North American cavity-nesting bird. The text available is a summary, so the founder, the town and the size of the company are not recorded there, and none of the later sources fills those gaps.

For the products themselves, the most checkable material is the maker’s own copy as relayed in retailer listings on Eartheasy, read in October 2026. Those listings repeat one description: nest boxes crafted from custom-milled, premium-grade, sustainably grown Eastern white pine from the Robbins Lumber mill in Maine, with a rough-sawn finish and species-specific literature and mounting instructions in the package.

The wood and the build

A listing for the woodpecker house says handcrafted from 1 inch white pine for insulation and durability. NestWatch asks for walls of at least 3/4 inch to insulate a nest, and names cedar, pine and cypress as fine untreated woods, so the material matches the agency’s advice. The rough-sawn face has a practical side too: NestWatch says the interior wall below an entrance should be rough, so nestlings can climb out, and the rough-sawn face of the boxes is at least consistent with that advice, though no listing says it was done for that reason.

The woodpecker house, 17.5 inches high, ships with wood chips and a slate guard meant to stop squirrels from enlarging the entrance hole. The listing does not give the hole diameter, so a buyer should confirm it against the species chosen using NestWatch’s species pages before mounting.

A martin house and a cottage feeder

The purple martin house measures 18 by 17.5 by 17.5 inches, weighs 24 pounds and opens on four sides for cleaning. Its listing recommends 10 to 20 feet of height and says it should not be moved once installed. NestWatch’s martin page gives 10 to 15 feet, a pole that can be lowered for maintenance, white paint on the outside only, and a clear zone of 60 feet around the pole. The purple martin housing pages and the house plans cover the same ground in more depth, including why a lowering pole matters.

The cottage feeder is a fly-through design, 10.5 inches high, 18 wide and 13.3 deep, holding 4 quarts, with a large roof and a perforated metal base for drainage. A feeder with good drainage is easier to keep dry, though no listing here describes a cleaning routine; the feeder section covers hygiene.

Checking any box against NestWatch

Whatever the brand, NestWatch’s list works as a shopping check. Untreated wood, at least four drainage holes of 3/8 to 1/2 inch in the floor, two 5/8 inch ventilation holes near the top of each side wall, a roof overhanging the front by 2 to 4 inches, galvanized screws and a hinged side for cleaning. The Coveside listings mention ventilation and drainage “with care” but give no hole counts, so those figures can only be confirmed with the box in hand. For plans, entrance sizes and mounting by species, the birdhouse guide is the place to start. One question the sources leave open is how the box holds up after several seasons of weather, since none of them reports a long-term test.