Pheathers – Nesting Materials

On By TimelessladyIn Pheathers

Birds are beginning to forage for nesting material in our yard. My grandsons helped me fill a suet feeder with bits and pieces that the birds might like to use for lining their nests. We were careful to use string that was cut very short. I’ve read a recommendation of no more than six inches long, but we halved that to three inches to be sure baby birds would not become tangled.

At first we added some colorful feathers in hopes of spotting them within the nests, but then I had second thoughts about the dye they might contain.

Sure enough, when we soaked a feather the water soon was tinted with excess dye. We pulled out all the dyed feathers and only used natural feathers with no color added.

Other items we added were dry grasses cut short, shredded cocoa liner, cotton clothesline casings, bits of tightly-woven nylon netting, and some moss.

We hung our finished project alongside the bird feeder. I saw a bird land and take a look by the end of the day. Hmmm…looking at that nylon netting I’m imagining baby bird feet getting stuck. I think I’m going to take the whole contraption down and remove the netting…just in case.

25 thoughts on “Pheathers – Nesting Materials”

        1. That’s true…although to be safe I’ll remove it. This winter as my husband and I walked one day we saw a bird nest with all kinds of plastic intertwined. We loved it…it was comical…almost like a tarp spread over the whole nest. That was one smart little birdie.

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