How to Offer Wild Birds Nesting Materials

Birdwatching can be a precious past time - especially when done from the comfort of your own backyard. If you want to draw in birds with custom-built nesting boxes, however, make sure to provide your future avian tenants with everything they need to make themselves at home.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Ensure, first of all, that your nesting box is an inviting place for a bird to build its nest: safe, clean, well-built, and so on. However perfect your nesting materials might be, they will never be used if the bird isn't interested in building a nest in the first place.

2. Research your birds: different birds like different materials to build their nests. Bluebirds, for example, are especially fond of soft grass and pine needles - but parakeets prefer not to use nesting materials at all. Robins, wood thrushes and swallows even use mud to build their nest.

3. Locate a suitable place for your stash of nesting material, close to your nesting box. If you can't find a natural location, like the crevice of a tree, use an alternative like a simple suet cage.

4. Fill your location with your bird's favorite materials - and birds that use mud may require a mud hole. If you're uncertain of your bird's preference, you can hedge your bets and stuff your cache(s) with a variety of yarn, hair, feathers, grass, twigs, or even shreds of paper towels.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't take offense, if your birds simply don't accept your help. They know what they're doing.