AUTUMN
DECEMBER 2012

March 24, 2011

MAKE A NEST HELPER

It's that time again to help the birds build their nests!


We gathered our supplies:

-horse hair from grooming the horses, 


-feathers on the ground from the ducks and hens




-mane from the horses


-angora from plucking the rabbits


-yarn that we cut into two inch lengths


-large wire suet feeder


We counted, measured, and recorded our ingredients. At a later date, we can see what has been used by the birds.


Next we layered them in the wire feeder . . . 
                      packing them loosely . . . 


and hung it outside, on a branch, for the birds.
We make these every year. See what we made last year here.
                   
                 happy day! happy nesting!


                 Linked to Barn Hop #6

6 comments:

michelle and murph said...

it will be such fun when the kids find nests made from those items!

Mullin Avenue Workshop said...

Marcia, This is such a wonderful idea.
In spring for years now, I have cut lengths of yarn with my children, and then we spread them outside on the ground for the birds to use in nestbuilding. I adopted this idea from a Baba of one of my children who told us about doing this as a child on the farm.
However we had no way of keeping track of the pieces, and could just presume and hope the birds were able to make use of them.

This year I will use your way with the wire basket, and perhaps some grasses and twigs as well.
Thank you!!
Brenda

Valarie said...

That is such a great idea and a great contribution to having birds in your yard.

Unknown said...

I am excited to get started with my kids on this! They'll love it! We can hang it close to two bird boxes we have under the eaves of the front porch! Hopefully we'll see these offerings in their nests! Thanks!

K said...

Wonderful. I KNEW that those crescents of horse hair should be good for something -

Tara Mekosh Berggren said...

I love love this idea! So much better than how I usually try to do this (just put out little bits of this and that).