Nest Helpers

Last year I made several "nest helper" kits for momma birds and gave them to little kids at a craft sale where Ken was selling birdhouses and feeders. The kits had all the stuff the child needed to have to make their own "helper" along with instructions.

Cut a piece of mesh (grapefruit or orange bags) and staple (or hot glue)it to a popsickle stick, tongue depresser or just a stick or piece of wood. Then stick or thread in bits of hair out of our hair brush, dog fur, threads, pieces of yarn, bits of quilt batting or pillow stuffing, or anything you have that birds might like to use in their nests. I put a piece of yarn on the popsickle stick to hang it by and put it on the low side of some evergreen bushes where it would be easily seen from the window.

What a great idea, Esther! I was trying to come up with a craft for the children in my Sunday School class to do next Sunday! This will work wonderfully! They range in age from 3 to 8 years old. It's something they can all do.

Oh good. Actually that idea came home with Kevin 37 years ago from preschool. But they had only used yarn, which is OK.

When I made the kits, I was trying to think of anything that the birds could use. It just happenedlast year that Smokey had been taken over to be groomed and they bathe and dry the dogs before they trim them. There was clean dog fur all over the floor. I asked if I could have some and OF COURSE they said, "Please take it all!" I still have some stuff left over from last year's kits.

Many years ago, we had been watching an Oriole in the back yard and she had built one of those little bag nests. But somehow that branch broke off the tree and we were all upset. There was one little egg in it. Woven into the sides of the bag were three clumps of live leaves that stuck out a bit and helped camouflage the nest. Then inside, woven all around was a piece of Christmas tree tinsel. The nest was made of long strands of fine grass and woven so tightly. There in the bottom of the nest where the eggs and babies would lay was white fuzz. We have cottonwood trees with an abundance of fuzz blowing around. Unless it was momma Oriole's down. I don't know.

Sure, anything stringy or fuzzy. Different birds use different stuff. That dried stringy moss would be good too. I don't know if birds have a sense of smell but don't think so. If they know what cats smell like, they might not like their fur. LOL

I have seen them use dog fur.

Don't forget dryer lint!!

I always worry about our dryer vent in the spring, cuz the birdies always try and check it out. Ours has the plastic louvers, but it gets damp and the lint sticks, and sometimes they don't close all the way. It needs to be changed.

Anyway, our birdies always love lint!

At the refinery we have to wear those foam ear plugs, the tow of them are attached with a plastic cord. They took a picture of a bird nest there with a whole lot of earplugs laced into it, we have hundreds of Grackles, doves and pigeons there.

Funny Bullfrog.

bullfrog wrote:At the refinery we have to wear those foam ear plugs, the tow of them are attached with a plastic cord. They took a picture of a bird nest there with a whole lot of earplugs laced into it, we have hundreds of Grackles, doves and pigeons there.

Hey! I actually have some of those ear plugs! I wonder if I should put some on the nest helper.