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It's a little late for most species of birds to be nesting
but some, like these cedar waxwings, are still at it. Seeing this bird with such a huge amount of
string made me wonder - what else do birds like to use as nesting materials?
This school website has a great chart listing some common bird
species and the materials they prefer for nesting. Most of these make sense - the smallest bird
on the list likes soft materials; the larger goose prefers to make thing a
little bit sturdier by incorporating twigs.
That stuff is ordinary, though, and widely available to most
birds. What about the stranger things? This
wiseGEEK
article lists items such as foil and cigarette butts. Birds have also been known to rip apart
things you may have around your yard, like pieces of your welcome mat or the
string you've used to mark your garden rows.
(Look at this eastern kingbird's stringy home - he stole that from the
garden!)
Below is a photo of a nest made
from my pony's tail hair. It now
decorates my Christmas tree each year.
This
blog says that black kites use white plastic littler to line their
nests. The white color may intimidate
other birds or serve to camouflage their white eggs.
What is the strangest
nesting material you've seen?
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Re: Unusual Bird Nest Building Materials
