“A chickadee weighs less than two loonies. On a minus-forty night it can lose a tenth of that just to see the morning.” — Why a seventy-two-year-old Winnipeg upholsterer is selling her last coconut-fibre roosting huts at a special price, before her press goes quiet forever.

In Winnipeg in December, the sun is gone before five o’clock. For the next sixteen hours, every small bird in the yard has one job: to still be there when the light comes back.

The cold is hard enough. The wind is worse. On the prairie it comes from every side, and a chickadee on a bare branch loses its warmth much faster than one sitting behind a wall.

Most backyards don’t have that wall anymore. And most people never see it, because it all happens in the dark.

The longest night of a chickadee’s life happens in your backyard

A black-capped chickadee weighs less than two loonies. All through the short winter day it eats, just to put on a little fat for the night.

Then the dark comes. The bird puffs up and shivers to make heat. It even lets its body cool down on purpose, so it burns less. By morning it can be a tenth lighter than the night before.

A bird that small has nothing to spare. One night out in the wind can use up what it needs for the next one.

Where did the winter hiding places go?

Small birds used to sleep in old hollow trees, thick hedges and brush piles. Today the old tree comes down. The hedge gets trimmed. The leaves get raked up every fall.

Many people put up a birdhouse and think that is enough. But most birdhouses are made for summer. They have air holes, gaps under the roof and lots of room inside. In July that keeps the chicks cool. In January it lets the wind right in.

“People keep the feeder full all winter and think that’s enough. Food gets them through the day. It doesn’t get them through the night.”

That is Marjorie Fraser. Everyone calls her Marj. She has watched this from her kitchen window for thirty winters.

Four chickadees in an old bus seat, and a morning she never forgot

Marj is seventy-two and lives in Winnipeg, a few streets from the Red River. For thirty-seven years she worked as an upholsterer at a seat and mattress factory on Notre Dame Avenue. Her job was to pack coconut fibre into church pews, bus seats and mattresses.

“Coconut fibre is what they stuffed the good seats with. It doesn’t go flat and it doesn’t hold water. That’s the fibre I trust outside.”

On the first of February, 1996, it was minus forty in Winnipeg. In the morning Marj went to the garage to get the snow shovel. On the shelf by the door lay an old, torn bus seat she had brought home from work that fall.

When she picked it up, a chickadee flew out of the split seam. Then another. Then two more.

Four little birds had pushed themselves into that fibre. They had made it through the coldest night of the year.

“I stood there with a shovel in one hand and my mouth open.”

The next week she brought fibre scraps home from the factory and pressed her first roosting hut, in a wooden form cut from an old bread box. It took her twenty-three tries, until 1998, before the walls were tight enough and the roof was right.

What Marj’s huts do that a summer birdhouse can’t

Marj never set out to build a pretty birdhouse. She wanted to build that old bus seat again, only better.

• “The Pew-Packed Wall” — Marj lays the fibre in by hand, layer by layer, and leans her whole weight on it, the way she packed church pews. There is one door and no gaps. “If I can push my fist into the wall, so can the wind.”
• “The Snow-Shed Roof” — The roof reaches out past the walls on every side. Snow and meltwater fall off the edge, not into the door.
• “The One-Hand Chamber” — Inside, the hut is only about a hand wide. That is on purpose. A small space fills up with the birds’ own warmth. A big wooden box stays as cold as the air outside.
• “The Seat-Cushion Bed” — Inside is loose fibre the birds can push into, just like those four chickadees did in 1996.

Marj always says one thing first: the hut doesn’t heat anything. It doesn’t have to.

“The birds bring their own warmth. My job is to keep the wind from taking it.”

Hang it before the deep cold, not after

Birds pick their winter sleeping spots in late fall. A hut that goes up in November gets found. So Marj tells everyone the same thing: hang it now, on a fence, under the eaves or in a thick tree, with the door away from the wind. No drill, no tools, just the cord.

The old seat on the garage rafter

Marj never threw that bus seat away. It still lies up on the rafter of her garage, right above the press, with the torn seam facing out.

Every winter morning she stands at the kitchen window with her coffee and counts who comes out of the eleven huts in her yard. She writes it on the calendar by the fridge. Her best morning was January 9, 2017, at minus thirty-eight. Five house sparrows came out of one hut, one after the other. A few minutes later, a nuthatch came out of the hut in the ash tree.

“Every bird that comes out of there in the morning is a bird that made it through the night. That’s all I’m counting.”

The last winter at the press

The workshop is a small garage behind the house. Bales of fibre sit on pallets. On the back wall stands the old hand press from the factory. When the plant closed in 2008, she bought it for fifty dollars.

But a lifetime of leaning into fibre leaves its mark. This spring, the tendons in Marj’s right shoulder tore. She can’t lift that arm above her chest anymore. And she can’t lean her weight into the walls.

“I can still make them look right. I can’t lean on them anymore. And a loose hut is just a pretty basket.”

This summer, two women from her curling club did the pressing while Marj called the shots. That was the last batch. After that, the press will be sold. 388 huts are left. There will be no more.

Why she asks so little for an hour of work

Each hut takes Marj more than an hour. She could ask a lot more, and nobody would blame her. She asks only a small part of that.

The reason is simple. She doesn’t want her last huts sitting on a shelf. She wants them out in as many yards as possible before the real cold comes.

“I don’t want them on a shelf. I want them on a fence before the first minus-twenty night. That’s the whole point.”

Tyler, a twenty-four-year-old from her curling club who looks after the ice, built the little online shop. He packs the boxes at night and takes them to Canada Post. Marj still has a flip phone. “Tyler does the computer. I do the fibre. He gets free soup.”

Whoever hangs one of her last huts this fall keeps something going that started with four chickadees in an old bus seat.

What bird lovers across Canada say about Marj’s huts

• ★★★★★

  “I hung it on the fence the day it came. Three days later a chickadee went in at dusk. Now I check every evening, just like Marj.”

  – Carol W., 70, Regina, Saskatchewan
• ★★★★★

  “It is smaller than I expected, and that is the whole idea. The walls are thick and tight. You can tell someone knew what they were doing.”

  – Gordon M., 68, Thunder Bay, Ontario
• ★★★★★

  “We had chickadees at the feeder all day and no idea where they went at night. Now one sleeps in the hut by the kitchen window every night.”

  – Linda K., 66, Edmonton, Alberta

Before the first deep cold: your questions

Where can I buy Marj’s huts?

Only through this page. Marj has never sold to stores, and you won’t find her huts on Amazon or Temu.

How long will they be available?

Only while the last batch lasts. Right now there are 388 huts left. When they are gone, there will be no more, because the press is being sold.

Can I try one without risk?

Yes. You have thirty days to send it back for a full refund. One email is all it takes.

More from people who hung one this winter

• ★★★★★

  “I bought two, one for us and one for my sister in Brandon. Hers had house sparrows in it before Christmas. She sent me a photo of them lined up on the fence at sunrise.”

  – Donna S., 73, Winnipeg, Manitoba
• ★★★★★

  “After reading her story I started watching from the window too. Nine mornings in a row, a chickadee came out of that hut.”

  – Ron T., 72, Sudbury, Ontario
• ★★★★★

  “It went up in ten seconds with the cord. Snow sits on the roof and the inside stays dry. Simple, and it works.”

  – Brenda P., 69, Fredericton, New Brunswick