Nesting Materials

[Marcia]

I've noticed that many birds (specially female blackbirds) are now busy collecting nesting material.

Do you offer any nesting material for your garden birds?
If so, what is suitable?

I read that apart from obvious moss, twigs and dry grass you could also offer them human hair, yarn (cut into 8" pieces), wool, strips of cloth, feathers, plant fluff, shredded paper... Have you ever tried to offer any of those?

[ron1863]

I have never put anything out for them as there is so much natural material available in the wild.
Mind you they do use some strange stuff such as tinsel from Xmas trees, wire, insulation etc.

[diggleken]

I remember putting expanded foam into a new nest box once - the blue tits got rid of it all before building a proper nest - next doors garden was a foam white-out for weeks cos of the wind direction!
I leave some bits of fur combing from the cat (just seems right to use it for this!) plus dry leaves and that hasnt been rejected.
If you put stuff out it might just get wet - apart from the above I largely leave it to them these days - the birds know best I reckon!
Cheers
Ken

[Bunny82]

Before my sister's dog died I used to put his fur after a good brush in an old sock, cut a hole in it and hang it up on the fence. I couldn't re-fill it quick enough!

And the sparrows always nick the coconut fibres from the liners in the hanging baskets. Grrr!

[Marcia]

love your idea Bunny82. I had a Siberian Husky once and everytime I brushed her I'd collect enough fur to insulate a house. If she was still around I'd have plenty of fur and spouse's holey socks available...

There's a blackbird building a nest in my hedge so today I made a pile of Pampas Grass' plumes and dried twigs on the ground to see if she wants them.

[chickenzown]

I've been collecting all the fluff that gathers on the filter of the tumble dryer for a few months, I put it out near my birdtable at the begining of the week and within a few hours it was gone, mostly a Blackbird and several blue tits.

[palomino]

We brush our woolly, moulting ponies outside so the birds can collect the shed hair. After a really intensive grooming session I hang carrot nets full of hair up on the hedge. All the little nests that fall out of our Leylandii at the end of the season are beautifully lined with soft layers of cream pony fluff!

[diggleken]

Hi Palomino - welcome to WAB - great bit of recycling there then !
Ken

[LynM]

Springer Spaniel fur is mighty popular with the bird population around here! We've been putting it out for several years now and Blackies, Sparrows and Blue Tits have been seen to take it. Pampas grass plumes are popluar with the Sparrows, they seem to have the knack of clinging on to the stems and pulling the fluffy bits out.

Emptied a nest box a while back and as well as all the usual moss, fur etc, there were short lengths of blue string, odd scraps of paper and a couple of small bits of plastic. It looked very comfortable!

[Marcia]

Mud! I've put a plate on the ground with some very wet mud in it and the female blackbird has been using tons of it! It's been quite dry here for a couple of weeks now so I thought the birds would appreciate a plate of mud to use as cement in their nests.

Of course there are always those clueless blackbirds who come and search for worms in the plate of mud...