New Hope-Solebury Student Builds Houses, Hotels For Local Animals

NEW HOPE, PA — Chloe McNabb, a sophomore at New Hope-Solebury High School, recently channeled her passion for helping animals and conserving wildlife into an ambitious series of woodworking projects on behalf of the Girl Scouts.

McNabb successfully constructed 24 bluebird houses, 12 screech owl houses, and 28 bee hotels.

She honed the idea following a consultation with Diane Smith, Director of Education for the Bucks County Audubon Society. McNabb then focused her attention on supporting the region’s most threatened bird species, including bluebirds and screech owls, as well as solitary bees.

Last winter, she began to construct “hotels” in her father’s basement workshop. The boxes were made from cedar, a hardy wood that will sustain through the winter months and can offer ongoing safety to the animals. She developed several prototypes of each house to ensure measurements were appropriate.

McNabb spent hours drilling each and every hole needed for the bee hotels, a tedious process that involved changing the drill bit size to accommodate multiple species of bees.

“I think I learned some really important lessons from this experience and gained new design and woodworking skills," she said.

Once constructed, the birdhouses were hung across three local Buckingham parks, including Holicong, Hansell, and George M. Bush Park. By placing these just at the start of the spring, the birds could create safe nests for their babies.

The bee hotels were placed within the Bucks County Audubon Society and a number of other locations across New Hope and Solebury. McNabb donated the extra bee hotels to her friends and neighbors, who put them up in their yards to enrich their gardens.

When she visited the parks at the start of summer to check the bird houses, she found that nearly all had a nest with eggs or with baby birds in them.

“It was very rewarding," she said. "I felt so proud because all of my hard work had paid off and it was enabling the local wildlife to thrive.”

McNabb also appreciates the support she had from numerous volunteers, who helped her place the houses in the parks during Bucks County's cold, wet spring days.

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