Nesting material?

[Matt_IOM]

A rather strange one - wonder if anyone can shed any light?

Over the past few days I've noticed that the grass in the back garden has been getting 'plucked' by something. That's the only way to describe it really, it looks as though something has been pulling at it and in patches it has left quite a lot of loose clumps of brown grass which eventually disappear. It looks like a bird has been doing it to me. Never seen it before though, and I haven't been at home in the day to see whatever is doing it.

Is this something that anyone else has seen? My guess is that the birds are using it for nesting material - is this possible and will it be anything in particular?

Best wishes,
Matt.

[Ruth Daniel]

I have H.Sparrows tugging at my ornamental grasses at the moment Matt so I would imagine that maybe they would be your suspects!

[Matt_IOM]

That would make perfect sense, I have 30+ that are permanent residents in the garden and each year they nest in the eaves of the house.

They are little garden wreckers if that's the case though . We dug the borders over the other day and did some weeding and, as it's been nice and sunny, the top soil has dried out. They have promptly discovered that this makes a great dust bath for them so now there's soil all over the paths! I don't mind though, it's amusing to watch them all rolling about, looks like they are having fun!

[Pam_M]

It sounds as though they are taking the moss from the lawn, Matt! The birds do the same in my garden. I have seen Magpies and Blackbirds taking it! I don't bother raking the lawn to get the moss out, the birds do it for me!

[JoulesH]

We turned out a few of our dry cows yesterday. After exploring and grazing, they lay down and within a few minutes the jackdaws had jumped on their backs to pull the loose hairs of their winter coats out for nesting material. Haven't managed to get a picture yet - they were at it again this morning but it was too misty. We have jackdaws nesting in trees but also on our chimney stacks. My border next to the house gets covered in twigs, feathers, sheeps wool, straw and all sorts of other things that they drop on the way up to their nestbuilding they are a bit territorial/confrontational about nest sites and I think that's why so much gets dropped when they have a spat. We had a broken window in the attic for a while and ended up having to take 4 bin bags of twigs out as they kept trying to build on the ledge and it all piled up on the floor!

[Pam_M]

What a lovely read, thanks, JoulesH! It must be lovely to see the antics of the Jackdaws! It reminded me of the Cattle Egrets I have seen on my hols as they hitch a lift on the backs of sheep and cattle.