Bird Nest experiment results for Apr 20-21, 2008

If you haven't been following my backyard bird nest experiment from the beginning you will find the original post about it here:

After two days of sporadically watching the nest helpers I can tell that the biggest challenge in documenting this experiment for you is going to be photographing the birds in action. I saw some chickadees and a goldfinch at the nest helpers yesterday, but by the time I got the lens cap off the camera, turned it on, and got it focused I had missed the shot.

I have also found that the auto-focus on my camera is driving me a bit crazy because it tends to focus on the closest branches instead of on the subject I am trying to photograph. So I’ve turned off the auto focus and manual focusing is taking extra time. At one point yesterday I was trying really hard to catch a chickadee in the act of inspecting one of the dog fur nest helpers. I was sure she would come back so I just stayed focused on that spot. After a while I opened my other eye and caught some movement at the bull rush fluff nest helper. There was a goldfinch inspecting it!!! But by the time I had re-focused over there I had missed the action…this was the best shot that I managed to get and it isn’t at all convincing that this goldfinch had been rummaging through the bull rush fluff with his beak just seconds earlier :o(

The most heart-pounding moment came yesterday when I saw a chickadee inspecting the feather nest helper. In my haste to grab the camera off the counter I almost dropped it in the kitchen sink!

So I think that when I’m trying to take pictures from now on I’ll put the camera on the tripod and leave it there, all set up and ready to go. I guess I’ll just focus on one spot and hope for the best.

We definitely have a chickadee nesting or planning to nest in this little birdhouse. I’m kind of surprised – this will be the first year that a chickadee uses it. Normally this house is used by sparrows, so I’m thrilled that a chickadee seems to have moved in. I can’t wait to clean it out in the fall and show you the chickadee nest which will most likely be made up of green moss and dog fur (and maybe a few feathers).

During the afternoon this chubby groundhog came lumbering along. He wasn’t shy and definitely wasn’t hard to photograph. He came around the feeders a bit, then came up the steps of our deck and walked around the perimeter before going along on his merry way again. Pretty cute eh?

OK, so back to the experiment. Here’s what’s been happening for the last two days. Basically the chickadees are busy inspecting and possibly taking some of the dog fur and feathers. There was a goldfinch inspecting the bull rush fluff and other than that I haven’t seen much activity yet. We’ve got loads of juncos around the feeders and in the crabapple tree but they haven’t shown any interest at all in the nest helpers. So either it’s too early for them to be nesting, or maybe I haven’t put out anything that interests them.

There were lots of visitors at the feeders yesterday – we had blue jays, the usual gang of red-winged black birds, grackles and cow birds, some starlings, a few sparrows and mourning doves, a pair of hairy woodpeckers, some pigeons and crows in addition to lots of goldfinches, chickadees and juncos. I wasn’t able to spend too much time watching them yesterday because I was busy working at my day job. Today I will be out at Fauna doing my volunteer work so I won’t be able to watch for a good part of the day today either.

But it’s still early in the nesting season and I know there will be much busier days ahead...I can’t wait!

Chickadee-dee-dee!
Kathleen (aka TheNatureNut)

A “nest helper” is born

From time to time I have been asked where on earth the idea for the nest helper came from. Here is the story:

It all started with an innocent article in a quilting magazine. The article suggested that quilters could lend a helping hand to their local wild birds at nesting time by hanging thread clippings, fabric trimmings and dryer lint out in the trees. The article said that the birds would really appreciate them.

I thought it was a wonderful idea. As a quilter I make mounds of thread clippings. When I paper piece I end up with piles of fabric trimmings and when I pre-wash new fabric the lint trap of my dryer fills with pretty coloured swatches of lint. So I just couldn’t wait to get started and for the rest of the winter I dutifully collected my quilting scraps for the multitude of wild birds that come to visit our yard in spring time.

When spring came I brought my box of “goodies” outside and draped some of them over the branches of our crab apple tree. I didn’t see any birds taking them, but the next day they were almost all gone. So I put out some more and the next day they were gone too. The following day it was so windy that I couldn’t get the goodies to cling to the branches. That’s when I noticed where they were all going. They were just getting blown away. A few were tangled up in the weeds around our gazebo, but the rest made a scattered path of coloured fabric shreds and dryer lint extending out about 400 feet from the crab apple tree over to our neighbour’s property :o(

Now when you live in the middle of a bunch of flat corn fields it’s like living in a wind tunnel. There’s nothing out here to block the wind, so I don’t know what I was thinking when I painstakingly hung those weightless bits and pieces out for the birds.

As the days passed I continued to empty my collection of threads, trimmings and lint by “decorating” the crab apple tree with them. The wind took care of littering the lawn with most of them. I gave up trying to watch to see which birds would take them and tried to content myself with the knowledge that my goodies were most likely going to good use.

When it was time to start working on the garden I was rummaging through my garden shed, silently cursing as I moved around all these rolls of snow fence that we no longer used. We had purchased the fencing to protect some 60 reforestation trees that we had planted the year we bought the house. Two years later the little sticks we had planted had grown as tall as me and were no longer in need of any winter protection. So the snow fence crowded my garden shed and every year I moved the rolls of it from one side of my shed to the other as I prepared for the summer.

And as I picked up a roll of fencing to move it a light bulb went off in my head, I decided to try using a piece to make a cage for the nesting materials that I had been saving for the birds. I hoped the cage would help to keep the materials together and in the tree where I could see them. So I got my wire cutters and sniped out a rectangle then folded it in half and lashed it together on two sides with wire, leaving one side open for stuffing. A wire hanger completed that first crude version of the cage. I stuffed it with goodies and hung it in the crab apple tree in a spot where I could see it from the patio door. And that’s how my first nest helper was born!

A few days later I was rewarded for my efforts when I saw a sparrow clinging to the wire cage and pulling out threads which it then took off with. A few minutes later the sparrow was back for more (or maybe it was a different sparrow – who knows) and I watched, fascinated as my nest helper was gradually emptied of its contents. The cage definitely did the trick by preventing the goodies from blowing away.

When I started my Etsy shop I made a listing for a nest helper – just for fun. It sold within a few hours. I was surprised, but even more so when I got a convo from someone else asking me if I was going to be making more of them. So I did, and the design evolved from that first crude version to the designs you can find in my TheNatureNut Etsy shop today.

And that, my friends, is the official story of how the nest helper was born.

Have a wonderful day!
Kathleen (aka TheNatureNut)