Birds are fascinating enough in themselves, but they have this added element of intrugue in that many are master homebuilders. Every year, they have to collect together a bunch of raw materials and construct something from scratch that will safely hold a clutch of highly-breakable eggs plus an incubating parent sat on top of them, and then survive a pit of squirming, clamouring babes. And they do all that without the aid of two hands and opposable thumbs - incredible!
It feels right, therefore, to give them just a little bit of a hand when they decide to create such works of art in our gardens. Of course, I don't mean that we get in there alongside them inserting extra twigs. But I think there are two big things we can do to help garden birds when they are in nestbuidling mode.
1) Ensure that there is a range of building supplies around the garden.
It is interesting to look at the list of nest components that different birds need, and it is far more than the 'pile of sticks' that we might initially think. Different species need different materials, but if we take a suite of common gardens birds such as Robin, Blackbird, Song Thrush, House Sparrow and Blue Tit, here is their overall shopping list:
What I'm not saying is that you need to go out and collect or present birds with these materials; this is about having a garden that is diverse enough to offer these kind of materials in enough quantity that birds feel they are in a Nesting Superstore rather than having to scrabble around in a Bargain Basement.
If you have a scruffyish garden, great, it probably offers all those materials. But a neat garden can do so just as well, for I like to make a clear distinction between 'neat' and 'sanitised'. If all your leaves have been sucked up by a vacuum cleaner and sent away with the rubbish, and all your twigs have been burnt, then that's no good. But if your leaves and twigs are neatly raked and used as a mulch on borders or in discrete piles somewhere, perfect!
In fact, for me the key element if you are to offer lots of nesting materials is nothing to do with neatness or scruffiness but is about having lots of plants, for they will produce the leaves and twigs and damp mossy places any bird could want. With an area of lawn left to grow as a meadow to provide dried grasses, you will be well on your way. You can see how ground that looks like where this Song Thrush is gathering materials in my garden is doing the trick:
2) Of course, the second thing you need to encourage nestbuilding is plentiful nest sites. Nesting boxes are great for Blue and Great Tits, but I really encourage everyone to have a House Sparrow box with the larger 32mm hole.
But pretty much every other garden bird needs dense cover, be it shrubs or trees or growing climbers. And lots of it - you want your birds to have choice.
You can imagine how, if you were a Blackbird, you might look at this scene below and think, "Wow! There must be a hundred different places where I might nest in there."
Or on a more intimate, small-garden scale, using climbers like this (here at East Ruston Old Vicarage in Norfolk) would make me excited if I was a Robin.
Once again, nesting time is another reminder that a plant-rich garden is right at the heart of a wildlife-friendly garden.
So make sure your Nesting Superstore is open and fully stocked, your next step to a bumper harvest of baby birds this year.
If you want to drop by my RSPB wildlife gardening blog, it is updated every Friday, and I'd love to see you there - www.rspb.org.uk/community/blogs/hfw
Can you please bring the dangers of baler twine to nesting birds to the attention of farmers and gardeners. The flimsy threads are attractive nesting building material are attractive to birds but can easily tangle around birds legs. My partner found the dead bodies of Swiftlets hanging out of nests entrapped by wisps of baler twine.