A couple of days ago, inspired by the sight of grackles waddling around my garden, gathering sticks and leaves for their nest, I wondered how they construct those nests. I knew they used mud, because last summer, when a big nest crashed down to my deck, I saw it was constructed with a lot of mud, and when I looked up into the Norway spruce from which it had fallen, I saw a pair of grackles up there. I assumed it was their nest. Now that I see the grackles gathering materials again this year, I raised a burning question: HOW do they get the mud into those nests?
Two friends had an answer for me. One, Kathy, who is a naturalist at Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes Park, Colorado, told me that they use worm casings, aka worm poop. She sent me this video of a robin doing that:
How do you like that?
And my friend Margaret, who was a naturalist at West Hartford’s Westmoor Park when my daughter Lucia was in the 4-H club there, had a different answer. She said,
“[M]any birds use mud to help hold their nest together. They do use their beaks to carry out and pack it with their tongues. A good book about bird nests is ‘ A Field Guide to the Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds’ by Colin Harrison.
Imagine using your tongue to build your home? Well, if you’re a bird, necessity is the mother of invention.
So I actually acquired the book that Margaret recommended:
This book came from the library of Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia.
You probably don’t know this about me, but I collect nests. Only if I see them on the ground.
Here’s one that was sent to me by my brother-in-law, Deepak, who lives in Missouri. I love this one because mud is one of its predominant materials:
The eggs in this nest are from other birds, other times, other places. I pick them up off the ground in my neighborhood. It’s a big deal to me, and a sure sign of spring, when I find the first egg of the season.
I don’t know what kind of bird built this nest, but I can tell that it was a resourceful one. Can you see the piece of plastic wrap or cellophane protruding from the right side?
And how about the nest below? Can you see that the bird who built that nest used a cigarette filter?
I even have a nest made predominantly of fishing line, picked up off the ground in—where else?—Cape Cod. The Harrison book, the one I showed you above, says this about that:
“Provided that they fulfil certain criteria, apparently unlikely man-made materials may be used. Pieces of wire resemble strong flexible twigs and may be used for the nest, while rags and paper form acceptable substitutes for dead leaves.”
Since the Covid pandemic, backyard birdwatching, and bird-wondering, has become an even more significant pastime for me than it has been in the past. I hope that my readers have found something equally absorbing and satisfying.