NEST BUILDING

Evening Star, Issue 20133, 25 March 1929, Page 11

NEST BUILDING

HARDER THAN IT LOCKS SCIENTIST’S CHALLENGE TO HUMANS. “ If you do not believe it is quite a task to build a bird’s nest, try it,” says Edward H Forbush, former Massachusetts State ornithologist, and an authority on wild life, in an article prepared for the Associated Press. “See if you can build the simplest kind of nest of twigs or sticks in the crotch of, a tree,” ho says, “ and if you succeed, notice how long it remains there before the winds blow it away. , “Herons and doves build mere platforms of sticks, so frail that often you can look through the interlacing twigs from below and see the eggs, yet these frail domiciles will withstand the storms of two or three winters. The reason for this is that the birds do not pick up rotten sticks from the ground, but break sound ones off the trees, and then so interlock them that they hold together. HOW THE TERN BUILDS.

“ The most primitive nest that can be built is a mere hollow in the sand. Common terns, or mackerel gulls as they are called by the fishermen, when nesting on sand bars where there is. little or no vegetation ottmi make such a nest. They breed sometimes in colonies of hundreds, and when the nesting fever comes on, each prospective mother bird chooses 1 her spot, and turning round and round, makes her little webbed feet lly, throwing out jets of sand in all directions, and so in a few minutes most of them have formed the little hollow that is to receive their eggs. “ But some, not satisfied with such primitive accommodations, gather grass or seaweed and, working with bill, breast, and feet, soon have constructed a very warm and comfortable nest.

“Most wild ducks build a warm thick nest of grass, lined with down from their breasts, and usually well concealed under bush or tree or in rank grass or other vegetation. When the eggs have been laid, the mother birds plucks more down from her breast, and felts it together in the form of a little blanket, Attached to one side of the nest. Then ■when she leaves the eggs, unless suddenly startled, she spreads this carefully over them, thus concealing them and keeping them warm. SOME USE MUD FOR NESTS.

“ Some birds shape their nests with mud which, drying, keeps out the cold wind. The robin's nest is composed largely of mud, lined with grass. In lining it the mother bird works the grass "into place with her feet as she sits in the nest, and turning around she works behind her feet while smoothing up the opposite side with her breast. ■

“The eaves swallow flutters down over some muddy spot, picks up a dab of mud in her bill, works it over with the saliva in her mouth, and plasters it under the eaves of a barn or under some shelf on a cliff, and, clinging there, holds it with her breast until it dries, then brings other mouthfuls until she has made a little curved shelf on which she, can stand.

“Then her mate brings more mud or both birds bring it until the nest assumes the shape of half a cup. Some of these nests arc roofed over and shaped like a retort, with a bottle-neck entrance; then they are lined with grass and feathers.”-