Do Cardinals Nest in Birdhouses? No, and What They Use Instead

Cardinals are not cavity nesters, so a birdhouse will never suit them. What they actually build in, and the open platform that sometimes works.

By Zakaria September 22, 2026 3 min read Save to Pinterest

A male northern cardinal in full red plumage perched on a broken branch — Photo: Veronika Andrews, Pexels License, via Pexels

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No — and not because the box is wrong, but because cardinals are not cavity nesters at all. No hole size, height or placement changes that.

The short answer

Cardinals never use enclosed birdhouses because they are not cavity nesters. They build open cup nests in dense, tangled shrubs three to ten feet up, preferring thorny or thickly twigged cover such as honeysuckle, brambles, hawthorn and grapevine tangles. An open nesting shelf mounted in cover occasionally works but is far less reliable than with robins or phoebes. To attract them, plant dense native shrubs and use platform or hopper feeders with sunflower and safflower, since cardinals are heavy and poor at clinging to small-perch tube feeders. Only cavity nesters use boxes.

Not cavity nesters. A birdhouse is the wrong shape, not the wrong size
Open cup nests in dense cover, 3–10 ft up
An open shelf sometimes works — try it, do not rely on it
Plant thickets, which does far more than any structure
Platform or hopper feeders. They are poor clingers

Cavity nesters and everyone else

Who uses a box

Uses a birdhouse	Does not
Chickadees, titmice, nuthatches	Cardinals
Bluebirds	Robins
House and Carolina wrens	Finches (mostly)
Tree and violet-green swallows	Jays
Purple martins	Mourning doves
Screech owls, kestrels	Orioles
Woodpeckers	Catbirds, thrashers
House sparrows, starlings	Sparrows (native)

The split is evolutionary. Species that would naturally nest in a tree hole take to a box; species that build in the open never do, whatever you offer them.

What cardinals actually build in

Dense, tangled cover, three to ten feet up
Thorny or thickly twigged — honeysuckle, brambles, hawthorn, dogwood, elderberry
Grapevine tangles, a particular favourite
Thick evergreen shrubs
An open cup of twigs, bark strips, grass and rootlets, built by the female in three to nine days
Two or three broods a season, usually in different spots

The nest’s whole defence is being hard to see and hard to reach. That is why density matters more than any other feature, and why a tidy garden holds fewer cardinals than a scruffy one.

Leave one corner untidy

A thicket you have not pruned is worth more to a nesting cardinal than anything you can buy.

Honeysuckle over a fence, a bramble patch in a back corner, an unpruned hawthorn — all of them outperform a nest box by a wide margin, because they are what the bird is actually looking for.

The open shelf

The one structure worth trying: a three-sided box with an open front, mounted in cover rather than in the open.

Roughly 7 × 7 inches, with a roof and an open front
6 to 10 feet up, sheltered, screened by foliage
Untreated wood, drainage holes in the floor
Expect inconsistency. Robins and phoebes take to these readily; cardinals much less so

Worth putting up. Not worth relying on.

Attracting them properly

For nesting:

Plant dense native shrubs — the single most effective thing
Keep some thicket rather than clearing everything
Avoid pesticides. Nestlings are fed almost entirely on insects, even though the adults eat mainly seed

For feeding:

Sunflower and safflower seed — both favourites, and safflower has the advantage of being refused by grackles and starlings. Our guide to the best bird seed for cardinals compares the two
Platform or hopper feeders. Cardinals are heavy and poor clingers, and struggle on small-perch tube feeders. Feeder design matters more than seed choice for this species
Feed early and late. Cardinals are among the first birds at a feeder at dawn and the last at dusk
A water source, kept clean and ice-free in winter

The window thing

A separate and very common cardinal complaint: a male attacking a window repeatedly through spring.

He is fighting his own reflection, having identified it as a rival in his territory. It can go on for weeks and occasionally injures the bird.

The fix has to be on the outside of the glass — soap, external screens, netting or decals on the outer surface. Anything placed inside does not remove the reflection, which is why interior fixes reliably fail.

It stops once the breeding season passes.

Common questions

Do cardinals nest in birdhouses?

No. Northern cardinals are not cavity nesters, so an enclosed birdhouse with an entrance hole is the wrong shape for them regardless of its size or where it is hung. They build open cup nests in dense shrubs and tangled vegetation, usually three to ten feet off the ground, and no modification to a conventional birdhouse will change that. The birds that use boxes are the species that would naturally nest in tree holes — chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, wrens, bluebirds, swallows and woodpeckers.

What do cardinals build their nests in?

Dense, tangled cover, typically three to ten feet up. Thickets of honeysuckle, brambles, hawthorn, dogwood, elderberry, grapevine tangles and thick evergreen shrubs are all used, and the denser and thornier the better since the nest's entire defence is being hard to reach and hard to see. The female builds a small open cup of twigs, bark strips, grass and rootlets in three to nine days, and a pair will usually raise two or three broods a season in different spots.

Is there any box a cardinal will use?

An open nesting shelf or platform occasionally works — a simple three-sided box with an open front, mounted in cover rather than in the open. Results are inconsistent, and cardinals accept these far less readily than robins or phoebes do, so it is worth trying rather than worth relying on. Planting the right shrubs achieves far more than any structure, because what cardinals actually want is dense cover rather than a container.

How do I attract cardinals to my yard then?

Plant dense native shrubs for nesting and feed sunflower and safflower seed on a platform or hopper feeder that a heavy bird can perch on. Cardinals are poor clingers and struggle with small-perch tube feeders, so feeder design matters more for them than seed choice. Add a water source, keep some untidy thicket rather than clearing everything, and avoid pesticides — nestlings are fed insects almost exclusively, even though the adults eat mainly seed.

Why does a cardinal keep attacking my window?

It is attacking its own reflection, not the glass. In breeding season a territorial male sees the reflected bird as a rival and will fight it for days or weeks, sometimes to the point of injury. The fix is to break up the reflection from the outside — soap, screens, external netting or decals applied to the outer surface — since anything placed inside the glass does not remove the reflection. It usually stops once the breeding season passes.

Which birds do use birdhouses?

Cavity nesters, and only those. Chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, house wrens, Carolina wrens, bluebirds, tree and violet-green swallows, purple martins, screech owls, kestrels and several woodpeckers all use boxes readily, as do non-native house sparrows and European starlings. Hole diameter is what decides which species can use a given box and which are excluded, which makes it the most important dimension on the whole design.

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