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March 31, 2008

Make a nesting bundle for the birds

In the spring, when my mom gives my dad a haircut, she puts his snowy locks out for the birds to use in their nests. I know because she calls me to tell me this, as a sign of spring.

My parents are so cute.

But it’s not such a crazy idea.

The birds use all kinds of weird stuff in their nests these days: straws, plastic bags, strips of landscape cloth, all sorts of nastiness.

Or maybe it’s just me and my aesthetic sensitivity again. I think birds should make only traditional, natural-material nests.

And they will in my family’s yards if I have anything to say about it.

I am human! I will have dominion over the beasts!

(The squirrels out there can shut up any time now. Any old time.)

My trusty Royal Horticultural Society magazine has a solution: Make your local birds a nesting bundle.

Last fall, they had a short article that showed how to take a branch, wind and stuff scraps of natural materials, like wool plucked out of the hedgerows, tree bark that shreds, pieces of twine, moss, dog hair, natural grasses and fibers and other suitable items into a bundle that birds can pick at and pull things out of without the whole thing falling apart. You then hang it in a tree.

Birds fly up, pull bits out, fly off and make their happy home. A few weeks later, eager chirping ensues.

(Options for plucking wool out of the hedgerows in my neighborhood are limited. The closest we get is a Brown student in need of a haircut, or a victim of a rogue RISD felting experiment.)

I haven’t made one, but I think the trick is to wind it up in a way so that the first bird that comes along doesn’t pull a piece of string and bring the whole woolpile down on it.

I would search for a small branch shaped a bit like a hand — it’s a good time for pruning, so examine your shrubs. It might only have 3 branches, but creating a pocket for the nesting material would help keep it in place. Then I’d take cotton string or jute twine and weave the fingers loosely together. Then I’d fill it with stuff and hang or stick it in a tree or other birdy spot.

Don’t make it too big: they’re making nests for birds, not gorillas.

Yes, it’ll get messy. But it’s meant to be temporary. When nest building season is over you can toss the remainder in the compost.

Birds eat tons of bugs. They pollinate crops, they entertain us with their activities and their song. Birds are good.

But millions of them every year are killed across the United States by domestic cats who hunt them for sport. So please, make sure Fluffy is indoors, with his Friskies and his “Animal Planet”, where he belongs.

True, the birds don’t need humans to help them build nests.

But it's fun to watch them do something besides eat. And it’s nice to think of the little robins nestling down at night in a soft tuft of my dad’s hair.

Posted by Paula Constantine at 4:22 PM | Permalink

Comments

This led me to find this: Small Miracles.

Incredibly interesting photos (click on the little ones to expand) and details about birds' nests, such as:

"Studies of nesting European starlings have found that the birds were selecting certain plants, such as wild carrot and yarrow, containing chemicals that would inhibit the growth of mites and other parasites ... A truly extreme example of material gathering is practiced by certain tropical swifts, fast-flying small birds that will actually strike much larger birds in midair to knock feathers loose."

and

"A pair of bald eagles may use the same nest for years, adding material to it annually until it becomes huge (an extreme example can reach a depth of 20 feet and a weight exceeding two tons). Such a nest is merely a ramshackle heap of sticks, hardly an admirable piece of avian architecture, but it does have its admirers: House sparrows and other small birds sometimes tuck their own nests into the lower crevices"

karen anne | March 31, 2008 6:18 PM link

March 31, 2008

Make a nesting bundle for the birds

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