By Kimberly Gentry
After winter transitions to spring and flowers are pushing upward, the nesting season is well under way in Wake County. Birds scurry and scout for building materials, sifting around in piles of sticks or maybe pulling coconut fibers from the liner of an outdoor flower basket. These well-adapted creatures can find what they need without human help, but there are things we can do to make the process a little easier and encourage nest building in our yards. And there are certainly things not to do.
“These birds have evolved for thousands of years, and they’ve become accustomed to using leaves and twigs and all that kind of stuff that’s around,” said Scott Anderson, the science support coordinator and lead bird biologist with the N.C. Wildlife Commission. “That can sound less exciting, but I think there are some things you could still do to help birds.”
In Wake County, the nesting season timeframe is wide-ranging and species dependent, according to Anderson.
“A wide variety of birds nest in Wake County,” he said. “Birds common to suburban woods like the Red-shouldered Hawk and Barred Owl can begin nesting in February. Resident birds that live here year-round, like the Eastern Bluebird, Tufted Titmouse or Carolina Chickadee, can start as early as April. Migratory birds — birds that spend their winters in more Southern areas of the U.S. and Central/South America — like the Yellow-throated Warbler or the Wood Thrush, often don’t start nesting until early May and will begin their trek south around September/October.”
Some birds may even have more than one nest in a season. Bluebirds, for example, can have two clutches of eggs in a season, according to Anderson.
Kim Schilling and Lisa Shadler, long-term bird enthusiasts and associates at the Wild Birds Unlimited store in Cary, echoed Anderson’s thoughts when it comes to helping birds.
“In all honesty, birds find pretty much everything they need in nature,” said Sadler. During a recent visit to the store, a steady flow of customers came and went, all seeking supplies and advice on everything bird related. When asked about attracting birds to your yard, Schilling said the answer is simple. “There are three very important things that you need — food, shelter and water,” she said. “For shelter it could be little bushes that the birds can scatter into if there’s a hawk or something. Water, all animals need water. And the food source.”
To encourage nest building, Schilling said to put out materials birds want to use. “If you don’t have it in your yard, they’ll find them in someone else’s yard and build their nest there. If you want to attract birds, you have to give them what they like.” For example, if you want bluebirds in your backyard, Schilling said to include pine needles — one of their favorite nesting materials — in your landscaping. Birds will use a variety of nesting materials, she explained, but each species can have their preferences. Pine needles for one, moss and sticks for another, and so on.
Anderson emphasized a similar point. “If birds learn there is a spot where they can go to and reliably find these things, they will use them. So, we can provide those things.”
So, what’s Anderson’s number one tip on what to provide? Keep it natural. “Natural things are better than non-natural things. So, anything a person might find in the natural world is better.”
When homeowners tidy their yards, preserving natural materials is something they can keep in mind. Small twigs, dead leaves, and untreated grass and straw are all great choices for nesting materials, according to Anderson.
“It’s mostly leaving it as natural as possible,” he said. “Leaving some leaves on the ground, it helps with that mulching process and allows worms to survive underneath the leaf litter. You can build brush piles in your yard and just piles of sticks, basically. Birds love going inside there. It could be brush, it could be sticks, it could be twigs, it could be leaves, whatever. But birds love using that as cover and also finding the critters and insects that live inside.”
Related to natural materials is the importance of native plants. “If you’re planting things in your yard, make sure, to the extent possible, that you’re planting native plants,” Anderson said. “The reason that’s important is because the native trees and shrubs support native insects way more than non-natives do. If you plant all non-natives, the diversity and the amount of insects hosting on those species are not as much as it would be if they were all native species. And that’s what a lot of birds rely on, those insects for food and for provisioning their chicks.”
A great example of a native plant to add to your landscape is milkweed. Anderson pointed out that milkweed produces seed pods with a silky floss that’s a perfect nesting material. Milkweed also supports other pollinators, like monarch butterflies.
If someone doesn’t have a yard to put out nesting materials, another option is placing some inside a container like a metal suet cage or a mesh bag. Stuff the container with leaves or straw, for example, and then hang it outside. Birds can then easily pull the materials through the open design of these types of holders.
With safety in mind, Anderson advises anyone using a hanging container to ensure it’s secured and doesn’t pose an entanglement risk.
A popular item with customers of the Wild Birds Unlimited store is a hangable, round ball-like open frame made of natural vine and filled with fuzzy alpaca fluff. The store also gives customers free mesh bags.
Materials that should not go inside a hanging container or left outside for birds include yarn, string and human hair. Anderson said even yarn or string made of natural materials such as cotton, is still a potential entanglement hazard. “Even if they are a natural fiber, they’re designed not to break, so a bird could get tangled up in one as opposed to a pine needle, for instance. They’re not going to get tangled up in pine needles.”
The National Audubon Society warns on its website that yarn can wrap around a baby bird’s head and cut off circulation as it grows. Human hair is an issue because it’s long, thin and strong enough to “ensnare a bird’s leg or wing and sever it.” Even pet hair can be an issue if the animal was treated for fleas, according to the organization.
Another big no-no is dryer lint. The Audubon’s information points out that when lint becomes wet, it loses its fluffiness causing holes in a nest and compromising its structure. Anderson said dryer lint is also problematic because of dryer sheet chemicals and synthetic fibers that can shed off of clothing and collect in the lint. “I think the main thing is that very few modern clothing has no synthetics in it. Dryer lint is made of whatever is falling off your clothes. It could be that you have a 25% polyester t-shirt, so at least part of that is synthetic. We care about microplastics and all that kind of thing, so we want to avoid introducing that as much as possible into the natural world.”
Once a nest is active with chicks, there are still some guidelines we should follow. Number one – leave them alone. Schilling said even the best of intentions can be misguided. “People, being people, try to be helpful, but they’re getting in the way of nature. You have to let nature take its course. If the birds are fledging—learning to fly—[people] will be sitting there waiting for them to come out. As soon as they hit the ground, [someone’s] on the phone, ‘I’ve got birds on the ground. What do I do?’ Yeah, momma and papa are somewhere around. If you don’t see them within 45 minutes, then I would start to worry.”
Anderson said the best thing we can do is observe from a distance. It’s a misnomer that humans touching a nest causes birds to abandon it, but as Anderson pointed out — “Definitely, don’t touch the nest.” Disturbing and interfering with a nest reduces the likelihood it will have a successful season producing chicks and having them fledge. Anderson explained that interfering with an active nest, including handling or possessing eggs, is not only a bad idea, but also against federal law. If you’re curious and want to observe an active nest, Anderson suggests doing so from a distance. And if you’re unsure of how far away is far enough, don’t worry, the birds will let you know. “The birds will tell you,” he said, adding that it’s important to be attuned to a bird’s behavior because we may not initially register what their agitation looks like.
“If you have binoculars, that’s great. You could start from a really far distance — 30, 40 feet or so — and observe their natural behavior. And, if you get close and the adult leaves the nest and is sort of hanging out nearby, maybe making some noises and stuff like that, but not a song, more like an annoying chirp, they’re agitated. They’re saying, ‘I want you to go.’”
Anderson encourages anyone interested in birds to participate in programs by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University. “Cornell has some amazing resources for people,” he said. Among them is NestWatch, an ongoing program to monitor the reproductive biology of birds, including nesting. Any interested birdwatcher, even a child, can become a certified “NestWatcher” and provide observations to the research database. “It’s a citizen science program for monitoring nests and collecting data for nests that could be in a box or it could just be one you find in your backyard,” he said. “It’s a really great resource for seeing, ‘how can I observe a nest without unduly disturbing it.’”
The Cornell Lab offers a wealth of information and services. For instance, how to build a bird-friendly garden. Its website also has live and recorded webcam videos that capture birds from around the world nesting and feeding.
Cam choices include hummingbirds gathering around a feeder in Panama, for example, or a Northern Royal Albatross nesting on a waterside cliff in New Zealand. Sometimes the cams capture other wildlife such as a gecko making a predawn visit to a hummingbird feeder and slurping up a snack.
The Cornell Lab also developed the free Merlin app that can identify a bird by either its picture or its song. The organization’s eBird program also uses an app for dedicated birdwatchers to share observations.
For more information and resources, visit the Cornell Lab’s main website at birds.cornell.edu, which includes links to bird cams, NestWatch and more.
If you suspect an issue with a bird or any other wild animal, leave it alone and call the N.C. Wildlife Commission’s helpline at 866-318-2401.
