The Bird House at Whitesbog Historic Farm & Village will be a gateway transporting visitors to experience being a naturalist. Enter the tiny house Cottage transformed into an art, science and history space filled with books, photographs, murals, info on local naturalists of the NJ Pinelands, bird viewing stations, easels, binoculars, microscopes, blackboard walls for visitors notes and art, an outdoor pollinator garden and gigantic birds nest next to the Nature Trail.

Visitors of all ages are welcome to explore, play, read, make, observe, take notes, sketch, touch, look and feel what it's like to be a naturalist and see themselves connected to nature all around.

This transformation of this tiny three room cottage will take a bit of work, patching and painting walls, updating two doors and adding ramps for accessibility, adding wall heaters and some closed cabinets storage and bookshelves, benches with storage, etc...

We are partnering with local artists (like Brittany Brydges) to paint interior murals including some Birds, Wildlife and Plants of Whitesbog illustrations. We will partner with scouts, volunteers and master gardeners to create the pollinator garden and feeding station and build the giant birds nest out of fallen branches. The community will be invited to help add to the already wonderful collection of vintage and new field guides and Nature ID Books, binoculars, how to draw books, art supplies, prints and canvases of nature art vintage and new. Thanks to those who have already donated!!!

We hope to open the Bird House this Spring to visitors!

This is a joint project with the nonprofit Whitesbog Preservation Trust's education and history/archives team as we research the history of the house and the residents who called it home including farm worker Jimmy Ortiz!

Do you have stories about the residents of the house or a naturalist of the NJ PINES? Let us know!!!

Any questions, information or donations please contact us!

Whitesbog has a long history of naturalists who have come here for classes (from Glassboro College and Rowan University), to do field studies, observe plants, birds and other unique species. Carnivorous plants like pitcher plant, sundews, native blueberries and cranberries both wild and cultivated, many varieties of lichen and mosses, pitch pine trees, orchids, and many more species are found here. The wetlands and woodlands are home to a wide variety of birds from eagles, sandhill Cranes, tundra swans, vultures, great blue herons to tiny woodland migrants like warblers. The mural will include mammals, birds, amphibians, bugs, plants, and more!

One of the tiny cottages in the 1970's when farm workers still lived here

Naturalist and Botanist June Vail leads a tour of Webb's Mill Swamp in 1973

Doris and Howard Boyd at a NJ Pinelands educational event, Lines on the Pines. Howard was an educator, author, entomologist, botanist, filmmaker and naturalist.

Botanist, historian, and photographer Ted Gordon leading a tour