“There are two nights a songbird is most likely to die.” Why a 72-year-old Appalachian wood carver is releasing his final hand-carved birdhouses far under gallery price, before his hands give out for good.
One of Amos Hensley’s carved birdhouses, hung where it belongs: outside, waiting for a tenant.
3 billion birds, and nowhere left to nest
Since 1970, North America has lost nearly 3 billion breeding birds. More than 1 in 4, gone, according to a 2019 study in the journal Science.
“Integration of range-wide population trajectories and size estimates indicates a net loss approaching 3 billion birds, or 29% of 1970 abundance.”
Rosenberg et al., Science (2019)The causes are many: pesticides, windows, outdoor cats, vanishing habitat. But for the cavity nesters, the chickadees and wrens and nuthatches, part of it is simple. The dead trees and old fence posts they raise their young in keep getting cleared away, and a bird that cannot dig its own hole has nowhere left to go.
These are the birds that keep a garden alive. 96% of songbirds raise their young on insects, and one clutch of chickadees is fed more than 5,000 caterpillars before it can leave the nest. Lose the nesters, and the aphids and the mosquitoes are what remain.
Grassland birds like the Western Meadowlark have been among the hardest hit.
“There are two nights a songbird is most likely to die.”
The first is a hard winter night. A chickadee or a wren can lose up to a tenth of its body weight before morning just holding its warmth, and the ones that live until dawn are the ones that found a hollow to shelter in.
The second comes in spring, after the eggs. A nest is only as safe as its doorway. Cut it too wide, and a starling or a jay can push in and take the whole brood.
The answer turns out to be an old one: a birdhouse carved as a face. Thick solid walls that hold more of a sleeping bird’s warmth than a thin box will, and a mouth cut small, room for a wren and too narrow for a starling. The man who makes them has spent his life learning how.
The man who has spent his life answering it
In a barn outside Bakersville, North Carolina, a 72-year-old named Amos Hensley has carved these birdhouses by hand for 44 years. More than 3,000 of them, each from a single block of wood, no glue, no seams. The mountain families who first cut them called the faces watchers, set at the edge of a garden to look over it.
Amos Hensley at his barn outside Bakersville. The wood dries two full years before he touches it.
He did not learn what a bird needs from a book. He learned it watching which broods lived inside his work and which did not. Ask him why a chickadee picks one house over another, and he will not talk about how it looks. He will talk about how it is built.
“I’d rather a wren live in it than a rich man look at it.”
Why birds move into an Amos Hensley watcher
It comes down to a handful of things a factory never bothers with, and the strange part is that the very features that make the face a face are the ones that keep a brood alive.
What sets a Hensley watcher apart
- The Single-Block Build. Carved from one solid piece of wood. No glued seam to swell, crack and let go in a wet spring, the way plywood boxes do, usually with a nest still inside.
- The Songbird Mouth. The open mouth is cut to roughly 1.5 inches: wide enough for chickadees, wrens and nuthatches, too small for starlings, jays and the predators that raid a nest.
- The Hooded Rain-Brow. The deep-carved hood overhangs the entrance like an awning. Rain sheds down the face and off the chin, so it never runs into the nest.
- The Hidden Drain-Vent. That second small hole below the beard isn’t decoration. It drains any water that gets in and lets hot air escape in the July heat.
- The Solid-Wood Thermal Mass. Thick solid walls hold the nest’s warmth through an April frost and stay cool in high summer. Amos calls it “a thermos for eggs.”
- The Living Patina. Left untreated, the wood greys to a soft silver over the years and becomes part of the garden, instead of peeling and flaking like a painted box.
One block, start to finish, by one pair of hands
His shop is a converted tobacco barn, dark but for one south window and a lamp over the bench. The wood dries in the corner for two full years before he touches it, which is part of why it holds together outdoors. Each face takes him the better part of a dozen hours.
He does not sketch first. “I don’t decide the face,” he says, turning a block under the lamp. “The grain tells me where the nose goes.”
Hang one outside and leave it be. Come spring, a wren may be looking back at you out of its mouth.
A wren at the mouth, come spring.
The face comes back every spring. Amos may not.
Two winters ago the arthritis reached the base of his right thumb, the exact joint that drives the knife. He can still rough out a block. What he can no longer do is the fine work, the small cuts around the eye that turn a lump of wood into a face that looks back at you. His doctor told him plainly that it does not come back.
There are 61 finished birdhouses left on the drying shelf. When these are gone, there will not be more.
“The birds are running out of places to nest, and I’m running out of time to make them,” he says. “I’d like to get the last of these into gardens while I still can. That’s where I could use the help.”
The small cuts around each eye. That is the part his thumb can no longer hold.
Priced for a garden, not a gallery
The galleries in Asheville would take every one of these at $180 apiece and hang them on a wall, where no bird would ever use them. Amos would rather they go outside. So these go out far under $180, on the hope that come spring a bird raises a brood in the mouth of one.
Where Amos hopes every one of them ends up: outside, in a garden.
“44 years of faces, and I’m down to the last of them.”
Help him get the last of them into gardens:
See What’s Left on the Shelf Check price and availability →What people are saying
The people who took one home
“It arrived solid and heavy, hung on the maple in April, and by May we had a wren family nesting inside. My kids named it Grandpa Oak.”
Danielle R., Asheville, NC
“I’d bought three birdhouses off Amazon and every one fell apart in a season. This is a different thing entirely. You can see the tool marks, and it has held up beautifully through a wet winter.”
Thomas B., Roanoke, VA
“I gave one to my father for his 80th and he teared up. A real person made it, and it will outlast every cheap one I’ve owned. I ordered a second for our own garden.”
Karen M., Greenville, SC
Good to know
The questions people ask first
Is it yard art or a real birdhouse?
Both. The face is the art. The small mouth, the hooded brow and the drained floor are what make it a working home a wren or chickadee will actually nest in.
Where should I hang it?
From a sturdy hook, a post, or a branch a few feet out from the trunk, about 5 to 10 feet up and near cover, somewhere a cat or squirrel can’t jump straight to it. No hanging house is fully predator-proof, so keep it clear of easy launching spots.
How do I keep it going?
Give it a wipe of boiled linseed oil once a year, after the brood has fledged, and it will weather season after season, greying to a soft silver. Clear out the old nest at the same time.
Where can I get one?
Only here, on this page. Amos’s birdhouses are not sold on Amazon, in stores, or through any marketplace. His granddaughter set up this one page for him.
Can I try one with no risk?
Yes. Every one comes with a 30-day guarantee. If the piece isn’t what you hoped when it arrives, email us and send it back. No questions, no hassle.
61 left, and no more coming. Help one find a garden before his hands stop.
Check Availability Hand-carved, one of a kind.“Neighbors keep stopping at the fence to ask about it, and a pair of chickadees moved in within three weeks.”
Wesley P., Boone, NC
Note: This article is a sponsored post and contains advertising. Figures cited: North American breeding-bird decline from Rosenberg et al., “Decline of the North American Avifauna,” Science, 2019; the insect and caterpillar rearing figures from Clemson Cooperative Extension and related research. Each piece is hand-carved from a single block of natural wood; as a natural material it weathers outdoors over time, and no two faces are exactly alike. Prices may vary. Individual results may differ.