Meet Harrison Frith! A college freshman and environmental activist who spearheaded the Bird Box project during his senior year of high school in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Preparing to build bird boxes for the Bluebird and the Barn Owl, Wholly H2O’s planned event kept getting postponed further and further. As Wholly H2O’s bird box building project seemed more and more impossible with limited contact and stricter restrictions in place, Harrison swooped in and took the initiative of leading this endeavor for his Eagle Scout project. An incredibly daunting task stood before Harrison, who was inexperienced with building bird boxes but determined to see this project through. Using the blueprints and bird box materials that Wholly H2O had already prepared, he worked with 7 of his friends and family as well as our very own director, Elizabeth Dougherty, to build and install his bird boxes at Point Molate Beach Park. Read more below about Harrison’s harrowing journey to acquire all of the materials, learn how to build them, and solve many of the problems he faced!
Hello, my name is Harrison Frith. I’m currently a Senior at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland, California and I am an Eagle Scout. However, let’s rewind to July of 2020 through the challenging journey of joys, conflicts, delays, and quite unconventional times.
Sitting on the stairs with my mom, we were brainstorming on how I could complete some type of bird box project. I didn’t know how to build one or even where to start. I only knew I wanted to complete a project that would aid the local wildlife in some way. While I was on my computer looking up random construction plans, while my mom was on Facebook. The plans I found were complicated and confusing, and I began to feel doubtful that I would be able to build the boxes. As my mom was looking through posts related to bird boxes…. glory to Wholly H2O for popping up on her screen with their Bird Box event post with a link to this Eventbrite page:
At first, I did not think anything of this discovery, until my mom suggested that I reach out to Wholly H2O regarding the bird box event and talk to them about taking a significant leadership role at the event. That suggestion sparked a vision… I could provide many helpers and extra materials or tools, assist with the setting up, provide a safety briefing, become familiar with the construction plans to be able to guide everyone, and more. I began feeling hopeful about this happening. My first attempt to get in contact with Wholly H2O was when I sent a message to them through their “Contact Us” section on their website. No response. I tried again with another message, then a phone call to the number at the bottom of the screen, and still no response.
Before finding Wholly H2O, when I was trying to figure out my Eagle project earlier in the summer, I contacted a family friend who is heavily involved with marine conservation. She connected me with her friend, Lisa Owens-Viani, who has helped other scouts complete the same Eagle project I was trying to do. After being in contact with Lisa for a couple of weeks, she coincidentally found the same Wholly H2O bird box event on Facebook. She provided me with Elizabeth’s email after I explained that I had reached out to the organization but could not get in contact with anyone at Wholly H2O. This process felt like I was in a maze—I collected all the keys and now I had a much clearer plan. I sent Elizabeth an email regarding the Wholly H2O bird box event on July 25, 2020, and she responded saying it was canceled due to the global pandemic. I felt that my great idea was going down the drain, but she happily suggested that I could take over the entire project myself. I could organize for my Boy Scout troop, friends, and family to help me to construct the boxes and coat them, and then we could install the boxes together once that is done. Hearing this was amazing, I was ecstatic! Elizabeth would provide me with all the materials and tools I needed, the wood was pre-cut, and we got to talking from there. I felt my vision to support the Bay Area wildlife was now going to happen.
Our first step was to find the construction plans for the two types of bird boxes — the Barn Owl and the Bluebird. She sent me the plans for the Bluebird box, which were pretty simple. But the Bar Owl boxes looked like I needed assistance from an aerospace engineer. So eventually I found a carpenter who was willing to help until Elizabeth told me she sent the wrong plans. Phew! The new Barn Owl box plans looked like something I could work with on my own. I told the carpenter never mind and he wished me the best of luck. I was then eventually able to set up a time with Elizabeth to pick up all the tools and materials. The process of getting the project off the ground took a little over a week. It was a little challenging given that Elizabeth was super busy and could not reply quickly to my calls, emails, or texts.
On August 1, 2020, I met Elizabeth for the first time, in person. At her house, my older cousin and I picked up all the tools and materials for the Barn Owl and Bluebird boxes. When I first saw all of the materials, I was a little overwhelmed. I felt like ‘Whew! This is it?’ given that I never built anything from wood. But I knew I could figure it out.
After a couple of days of planning the event to construct the boxes, I remembered to go through and account for all the pieces. On August 5, 2020, I discovered that the piece that serves as the left wall to the Barn Owl boxes was missing for three of the boxes. With the event set for August 9, 2020, I wanted to make sure I could get the pieces. I texted Elizabeth that day, again on August 6th, and again on August 7th, and no response. I began to worry a little bit because I would have to reschedule my event for next weekend and I knew some of my helpers would not have been available then. When Elizabeth replied on August 8th I felt a big weight off my shoulders. I was able to go to her warehouse to pick up the missing pieces. This is when I found out that she had received a notice to move out of her art studio and things got rough trying to move all of her belongings.
The next day I successfully held my Barn Owl and Bluebird box construction event. I had seven helpers that consisted of my troop members, brothers, and friends. Given that none of them had any woodworking experience, it was amazing to see everyone work together and my vision coming alive.
There were a couple of hiccups though. One being the wood for the Bluebird boxes was fragile and split very easily, so we were only able to make 2 of the 4 Bluebird boxes. It was relieving to know Elizabeth was understanding because I thought she would’ve been upset.
Then another minor problem was the divider piece that goes inside the Barn Owl boxes to protect the owls from predators was too tall. This problem resulted in me having to go another round of wrestling up with Elizabeth’s attention to get the correct dividers. I was able to drop off a fully constructed Barn Owl Box that already had a divider in it (this was the example box used at my construction event) and the wrong-sized dividers at Elizabeth’s house for Stevo, who is a carpenter, to trim them.
I wanted to respect how much Elizabeth had going on at the time and did not want to add more to what she had already on her plate. Eventually, I picked up the correct sized dividers from her and we talked about how the early spring would be the best time to install the boxes. So I used a lot of time to complete my Eagle Scout binder (a bunch of busy work for my Eagle Scout advancement) and run around the Bay Area to get signatures.
Then on December 23, 2020, with the help of my two brothers Brandon and Dylan, I finally installed the dividers to the boxes and fully coated the Barn Owl boxes with exterior enamel. Soon after I let Elizabeth know the boxes were ready to go up once February came around. On January 7th I was awarded the Eagle rank thanks to Wholly H2O. This achievement has helped me with my success in being admitted into many colleges, including UC Berkeley where I plan to attend in the Fall of 2021.
When February came around Elizabeth, Tony, the bird box guru, and I arranged to meet at Point Molate Beach Park at 10:00 am on February 27, 2021. On this day we installed 2 Barn Owl boxes and 1 Bluebird box at Point Molate Beach Park, and also close by we installed 2 Barn Owl boxes and 1 Bluebird box at San Pablo Yacht Harbor. I would say this was the most rewarding part of the whole project. I got to spend the sunny and beautiful day with my family and Elizabeth, I met new people, and was able to offer a little help to the planet. It felt very rewarding to see all of the time and effort I put into this project come to life. I look forward to visiting those six boxes and hope to see birds have made them their new homes.
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You can go to Point Molate Beach Park and check out Harrison’s bird boxes yourself! You might even catch a glimpse of some of the birds that have built their homes inside of the boxes. Check out the images below to see some of the Bird Boxes that Harrison put up, and the process it took to complete this project. Stay tuned by signing up for our newsletter to get notified about events just like this one!
