Bird Nest experiment results for Apr 25 to May 1, 2008

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

It has been a slow week in experiment land. The temperatures have been more in tune with the season which means that the days have mostly been cold, rainy and windy and the nighttime temperatures have been hovering around freezing. Looks like someone realized that the beautiful weather we were having was a mistake so they recalled it and “fixed” it by sending us the krap we’re supposed to get at this time of the year :o( So there hasn’t been a whole lot of nesting going on this week because birds are smart enough not to nest when it's yucky out.

There is still a large population of birds that haven't started to nest yet. That’s because a lot of the birds around here nest in deciduous trees and most of the deciduous trees are still bare. A lot of varieties are starting to bud, but most of the trees in our woods are still just brown and grey with only the slightest bit of light green starting to show. Our willow tree is greening up nicely and that may be where this little goldfinch is building her nest. I caught her with a beak full of string just before she took off towards the willow. I wish I could have gotten a better shot of her, but it’s not like they stick around to get their picture taken – they grab their stuff and they’re gone!

Some of our feathered friends are already nesting because they prefer the protection of coniferous trees. A wonderful example is this robin. I’m so surprised that she has decided to use this poor old juniper to nest in. All of our junipers were attacked by some sort of problem 2 summers ago that made them loose pretty much all of their turquoise-greenery and darn-near killed them. Last summer my husband wanted to dig them out, but I begged him to leave them because they seemed to be trying to make a come back. They are still looking pretty thin and I worry that this robin really doesn’t have much cover, but she chose to nest here so I guess she feels comfortable. She has not laid her eggs yet, but her nest is all ready to go when the time comes. I’m so thrilled that we’re going to have baby robins again and right outside our dining room window (the pink hand in the picture is pointing to where the robin nest is).

The starlings are definitely nesting…but they are seriously driving me coo-coo! They never perch in the crabapple tree where the nest helpers are hung because they tend to hang out with the tough crowd – you know…with the grackles, cowbirds and blackbirds. They don’t use trees for protection – there’s strength in numbers and nobody dares mess with them! Anyways, it seems that every time I look out I see a starling hopping along in the grass with a beak full of nesting material, so I grab the camera and…damn – missed it! So I go about my business and later I glance out the window and there’s another one with a beak full of nesting material! So I grab the camera…and too late – it’s gone. This has been happening for 3 days now. I’m starting to wonder how wildlife photographers manage to keep their sanity.

Anyhoo, that my friends is pretty much all the news I’ve got for now. Stay tuned for more backyard bird nest experiment results in the upcoming weeks. Things are bound to get interesting real soon :o)

Keep on smiling!
Kathleen (aka TheNatureNut)

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)

The biggest backyard bird nest experiment ever!

Many of you may be familiar with the little backyard bird nest experiment kits for girls (left) and for boys (right) that I sell in my Etsy shop. These were developed as a result of many years of experimenting by putting out different nesting materials for the birds in my own backyard.

Now that I have a blog I have the perfect way of sharing everything about this year’s experiment with you. This year’s will be the biggest experiment I’ve ever done! I spent the day yesterday preparing 15 nest helper cages with all different kinds of nesting materials. In true obsessive-perfectionist style, I have photographed them all laid out in alphabetical order for your viewing pleasure:

Starting at the top left corner and going down each row these are the materials that will be tested this spring:

1) bull rush fluff
2) corn husk (dried and naturally purple – it comes from a piece of Indian corn)
3) cotton fabric trimmings
4) dog fur (white and squeaky clean from the dog grooming shop)
5) dog fur (dark grey and a bit smelly – a contribution from my friend’s dog brush)
6) dried grass
7) dried moss
8) dryer lint
9) excelsior
10) feathers
11) raffia
12) shredded paper
13) straw
14) string & sisal twine
15) wool

I decided to try two cages of dog fur this year. I’m curious to see if the birds have a preference for light or dark coloured fur. The fact that it’s clean versus smelly might throw off my results though, since they might be choosing based on smell instead of by colour – we’ll see.

I printed out a set of experiment sheets and have filled out sheet 1 showing what I am putting out and the date.

Now all I have to do is to drag the big, heavy ladder out of the garage and go hang them up in the crab apple tree!

(gathers up nest helpers and disappears briefly…all enthusiastic and wearing a big mischievous grin)

Ta-daaa – done! Now since we live in a wind tunnel I have twisted the hanging loops around the branches instead of just hanging them in the traditional way. I’ve hung them the traditional way in the past and it just makes it too easy for the wind to blow them down and for the squirrels to steel them.

I also use the crab apple tree for a reason. This tree is near our bird feeders and as a result it is not usually used as a nesting tree (too much traffic). Now in the case of this experiment we want traffic – so this is a good thing. It’s also in good viewing distance of the kitchen windows so I won’t need to use binoculars to check out who’s shopping at the nest helpers. In previous years I have also hung nest helpers in some of our evergreen trees. This year I’m not going to do that because I’m hoping that we’ll get some nests in the evergreens that I’ll be able to photograph and share with you.

Oooo I’m all a-twitter! Before I even had a chance to put the ladder away there was a chickadee who came to inspect the dark dog fur and I think I saw something take off with one of the feathers, but it took off too fast for me to identify what kind of bird it was. I thought it was a bit too early for the birds to be thinking about nesting, but I guess I was wrong. Looks like there are some early birds out there (he he he)

This is so much fun :o)
Kathleen (aka TheNatureNut)