Etsy Find: Backyard Bird Nest Helpers

I'm throwing some love The Nature Nut's way. This item is just about the coolest, most resourceful thing I've seen in a long while. It's made from all upcycled material and incorporates birds and nature. In fact, it allows the birds to upcycle these items themselves, so really it's like 2 times reused "stuff." Below the picture is a little description from right off her listing:



Birds are very resourceful and some will make their nests using the strangest things. This little experiment kit will reveal the items that your local wild birds prefer to use when nest building.

Each cage is stuffed with something different:
- rainbow coloured wool
- raffia
- fur from my friend’s Bouvier* (Flanders Cattle Dog) named Watson
- shredded coloured accordion paper

* The fur from Bouvier dogs is normally non-allergenic. This fur comes straight from the grooming shop where he was bathed and then got his summer trim. The fur doesn’t smell “doggie” and should not cause problems for people who normally suffer from allergies.

You can hang all four nest helpers out in the trees around your yard and see which birds prefer each type of nesting material. When the birds finish emptying the cages you can continue the experiment by re-stuffing them with any of the following materials that you can find around your home:

- straw
- bits of string
- dried grasses
- small twigs
- thin strips of cotton fabric
- dried corn husk
- moss
- short lengths of thread
- bull rush fluff or other natural fluff produced by wild plants
- cotton balls
- feathers
- dryer lint

Click here for more info.