Nesting time

It’s great to hear the dawn chorus of bird song at this time of year and see birds collecting material from the garden for nests. 

When magnolias bloom, it's time for birds to build nests

    I’ve put out mesh balls filled with feathers again to aid in the nest-building effort. An attractive ball made from bent twigs filled with fluffy raw cotton that I bought a few years ago from a catalog and hung from a branch drew no bird customers at all. I noticed that birds seemed more interested when the ball contained feathers. 

Feathers make more popular nesting material than a wad of raw cotton

    That’s when I started saving onion bags and ordered a big bag of goose feathers from a company that sells them for topping up feather comforters. I fill the bags with feathers, close them with twist ties, and hang them from branches like Christmas ornaments.

 

Onion bag feather ball hanging in a Norway spruce

It’s fun to see a bird hover or cling to the mesh to snag a feather or two and then fly off purposefully to where the building project is underway.

    The bad news is that many of the birds taking me up on this offer are nonnative house sparrows (Passer domesticus). 

European house sparrow

This highly adaptable species originated in Eurasia and North Africa and now lives on six continents, everywhere but polar areas. Flocks of house sparrows evict native birds from their nesting sites and hog the food supply.

    My goal is to foster a generous garden ecosystem where a diverse range of bird species can find the plants, insects, water, shelter, and nesting opportunities that they need. For that reason, I’ve tried to stop inviting these sparrows to my yard. Not filling birdfeeders during the growing season has made a big difference. Once the feather balls come down this summer, I won’t do anything else to encourage house sparrows to return. 

    I’m encouraged to see birds using some garden debris for building nests. That’s what I hoped would happen with the transition to intentionally bird-friendly gardening (Grow Native Massachusetts offers this guide to providing food and habitat for birds in your yard).

    This week I’ve noticed American robins (Turdus migratorius) busily flying back and forth and scolding when I get near certain trees. On Saturday I spotted faded hosta leaves hanging from a nest in a tall Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica). 

Hanging hosta leaves make this robin's nest noticeable

The penny dropped: that’s why last year’s hosta leaves are migrating around the yard and showing up draped over low branches. 

The robins are picking them up to carry to their chosen nest spots, dropping some along the way. Even wilted and dried out, those large leaves must make a heavy load for a 3-ounce robin. 

I noticed hosta leaves woven into another nest located on a downspout under the eaves of the house. Saving the garden clean-up for later this spring has allowed nest-building robins to make use of last year’s leaves, stalks and twigs.

    True, hostas are Asian imports, not native to New England. If they’re useful to the robins, though, I feel their inclusion in the garden is sustainable enough. That’s fortunate, because they’re pretty too. 

Nonnative hostas and flowering astilbes in July

 

Bird BNB

Last week I mourned a clematis that’s not leafing out. I’d like to cut back the dead gray stems and trim off spent peony blossoms nearby. The reason I don’t is that a cardinal couple has built their nest two feet from the lattice supporting the now-dead vine. I don’t want to trespass on their territory.

    It’s a thrill to see birds nesting near the house this year. I like to think they’re choosing our yard because of hospitable conditions. I spotted the male cardinal flying back and forth near the garage and wondered where his nest was. 

     One day I was standing at the kitchen sink gazing absently out the window and realized I was looking right into a nest of small twigs built at eye level next to the trunk of a Hinoki cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa). 

The nest of twigs near this trunk is well hidden by foliage

    I can see why this shrub was a good choice, because its evergreen scales grow densely, making an excellent shelter. Now I sometimes see the heads of the baby cardinals with their mouths open wide, waiting for their father to stuff in some food. 

    The other nest I’m aware of belongs to robins. It sits on top of a security light mounted under the eaves of the house along the driveway. I first became aware that nesting action was going on when I started finding dried stalks of smooth Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum) lying on the asphalt. 

Dry smooth Solomon's seal stems make good nesting material

    Looking up, I saw a new nest constructed from stalks and mud sitting on top of the leftover base from a previous effort. 

Robin's nest

Two weeks later I found a piece of blue eggshell on the ground under the nest. The chicks were hatching!

    The robin father won’t stay on the nest when I’m around, so I’m not able to capture his portrait. 

The best shot I could get by hiding in my car

This makes me think that those stake-outs you see on TV, where a detective sits in a car taking plentiful photos of an unsuspecting criminal with a whirring telephoto lens, may possibly be unrealistic, or at least would be if the suspect were a bird parent. 

Not fooling any robins

    This robin flies away to a fence post or the peak of the garage roof when he notices me getting near, increasing my admiration for real wildlife photographers. He’s clearly on the job feeding the chicks, though, because I see their little beaks poking out above the rim of the nest, and they’re growing fast.

    Looking for some background information, I learned that American robins and northern cardinals do good work in the garden. They eat lots of insects, as well as fruits (robins) and seeds (cardinals). Robins are among the few birds that feed on grubs and worms they find in lawns, which is why they’re so visible in suburban landscapes. 

    I found out that the mother birds in both species often move on once the eggs hatch, building another nest and producing and incubating another clutch of eggs in the same season. The fathers do the work of feeding the nestlings. Who knew male birds were so evolved?