How nests are built. Research work "Why do birds build nests?" Materials for building nests

A hen needs a special place to lay eggs. It should be convenient, comfortable, and spacious enough for the hen to sit comfortably in it. Nests can be made from scrap materials, buckets and boxes, but experts suggest following certain rules for constructing a place for oviposition. How to make a nest? What do they pay attention to?

Place places for chickens to lay eggs on the floor or on the walls. For floor nests, choose the far corner of the chicken coop. In the corner they install a structure that resembles a dog house. The floor is covered with sawdust. A bedding of hay is placed in the center of the booth.

The hay is spread out in the form of a bowl with a flat bottom so that the eggs always remain in one place, in the center, and do not roll out beyond the “bowl”. The floor must be level. The entrance to the booth is made wide so that the chicken can easily enter it. When organizing places for laying hens, it is necessary to take into account some rules.

• To prevent rodents from reaching the nests, they are built at a height. They are installed in several rows. They can be built in the form of cells. For large livestock, the structure consists of several floors.
• The cell size for laying hens is 25 cm wide, 35 cm deep and high. Chickens are small in size and will fit quite comfortably on an area of ​​just under 1 m2.
• Individuals with meat productivity are distinguished by their massiveness and large size. Cells with an area of ​​1.2 m2 are adapted for them. Height – 45 cm.
• If the cells are made in the form of boxes and are arranged in several rows, then the bottom is made double with a pull-out tray. A tray is necessary for droppings and dirty sawdust. It is cleaned every day. The litter is updated.
• The floor is made of fine mesh. Wood shavings are poured onto it. The waste will go into the pallet.
• In cold regions, not only the walls of the poultry house are insulated, but also the nests. Polystyrene foam is chosen as thermal insulation, but the chicken should not reach it. The foam is covered with foil. A sheet of moisture-resistant plywood is installed on it.
• The cells must be cleaned and disinfected. Smoke bombs are often used for disinfection: birds are removed from the chicken coop.
• A perch is installed at the entrance to the nest. This is the crossbar. It is necessary so that the chicken can easily reach the laying site. For laying hens of egg breeds, the perch is smaller in diameter than for individuals of meat breeds.
• After building the box, you need to check that there are no nails or screws protruding from the plywood. If deficiencies are found, they should be eliminated. Otherwise the birds may get hurt.
• If you plan to build a laying cell with an egg collector, then the bottom panel is strengthened at an angle.
• Additionally, a drain for eggs is installed. It is covered with soft material so that the shell is not damaged when the egg enters the tray. Rubber, felt, linoleum, but its reverse side, are used as such materials.
• Nests must have thresholds to prevent eggs from rolling out and breaking. The optimal sill height is 5 cm.
• For a large number of laying hens, one place for laying is not enough. Calculate 1 nest for 5 individuals.

The flooring in the chicken coop is covered with sawdust or straw. The litter should not be too soft. In search of a place to lay eggs, laying hens will explore every corner of the house. The most convenient places should be nests. This is where they will do the laying. The productivity of the bird largely depends on the quality of the site.

Chickens begin to lay eggs at 4-6 months of age. They are capable of laying 1 egg every day. On average, individuals lay 200-300 eggs per year, depending on the breed. The most productive are leghorns. In laying hens for meat production, puberty is later. They lay their first clutch at the age of 8 months. They lay eggs every other day or 1 egg every 3 days. During the molting period, egg production in birds decreases. Duration of high productivity is 4 years.

Nests for laying hens are made with your own hands. To build cells, it is necessary to prepare moisture-resistant plywood or a wooden board: the material is not treated with varnish or dye. The board is carefully sanded to ensure a smooth surface. A mesh is used as the bottom deck. The hinged structure includes a take-off bar. A 5 x 2 cm block is chosen for it. First, the project is carried out: a drawing is made with the current dimensions. Sizes are chosen depending on the breed of chicken.

• The parameters indicated in the drawing are transferred to the material: sheets of plywood or chipboard.
• The parts are cut out with a jigsaw.
• All edges are treated with sandpaper.
• Small nails are used for fastening so that they do not extend beyond the panels.
• The entrance is made wide.
• It is covered with a side 5 cm high.
• The take-off bar is installed at a distance of 10 cm from the side. It is secured to the wall with 2 bars. The length of the strip is made according to the width of the entrance to the nest.
• A drawer is installed under the floor grid.

For laying hens with a large weight, it will be difficult to take off, so instead of a take-off bar, a ladder is installed. It is made from elongated plywood. The width of the sheet is equal to the width of the cell entrance. Planks are secured to the plywood: these are steps for the bird. She can easily climb up them.

If you plan to arrange a drain for eggs, then the floor is made at an angle of 5 degrees. The tilt is necessary so that the egg rolls towards the far wall. A small space is left between the floor and the wall: 10 cm is enough. A gutter comes out of it. This is an egg outlet. The inclination of the gutter is 5 degrees. The inside is lined with linoleum, face down. The gutter ends with a tray.

It is necessary to make a small box where the eggs will be collected. All its surfaces must be soft. The gutter can be equipped on the front wall of the cell. In this case, the slope of the floor will go towards the entrance.

Nests, which are separate structures, are used for floor keeping of livestock. If chickens are placed in cages, then the design of cells where they lay eggs will not be suitable. There are no separate places for laying in the cages. The bird brings the egg to the floor. It immediately rolls into the egg collector. There should be at least 100 cm2 per hen. No more than 3 individuals are placed in a cage with an area of ​​1 m2.

Feeders and drinkers are taken outside the nest cage. They are installed in front. The mesh on the door is chosen with a large longitudinal mesh so that the birds can freely stretch their heads towards the feeder. The remaining walls of the cage are made of fine-mesh mesh. Such structures are called family nests.

Wall-mounted structures are not attached directly to the wall. A small gap is left between the cell system and the wall of the chicken coop. This will allow for effective ventilation of both walls and nests. The boxes are hung on brackets that are mounted on the walls or on slats.

The easiest way is to make a nest from a plastic vegetable box, but it should not be hanging. The walls of the box are thin and may not support the weight of a laying hen, especially for meat-producing birds. Places for laying boxes are installed in a row horizontally. A tray for droppings is installed underneath them. The canopy under the boxes is made in the form of a panel, which is placed at an angle. In this case, the bird will not be able to sit on the canopy and lay an egg there.

Some housekeepers complain that chickens in their nests often empty their bowels. The litter quickly becomes wet and dirty. It needs to be changed. Otherwise, the laying hens will stop using this place for laying. They may even hide their eggs. Why can a bird soil its nest with droppings?

This happens for certain reasons:

When arranging places for laying and hatching eggs, you must follow the rules. Withstands all parameters of boxes, cells and cages. Egg pecking often occurs in cramped cages. To accustom a laying hen to the nest, you can place a dummy egg in it. The bird will understand that this is a place for laying. A properly created place for laying will increase egg production in chickens.

The friendly sun, the gentle breeze, the first barely awakened flowers... Yes, this is everyone’s favorite awakening of nature - spring. And the first to announce the onset of spring are birds returning from warm countries. They begin to hardworkingly arrange their nests in order to breed offspring. And if it is quite easy to distinguish spring birds from winter birds, then it is not easy to determine the owners by the nest.

The first harbingers of spring

They talk about birds arriving in the spring at school. Spring birds arrive in small flocks, and the finches are the first to appear. If you get closer to the finch, you will notice how beautiful the bird is: in what tones its feathers are cast! And green, and red, and brown, and on his head there is a blue “cap”. From a distance, the finch is noticeable by the white stripes on its wings and back.

After the finches, thrushes arrive, and in Russia, in the middle zone, rooks are considered the first birds. Then in the parks you can find robins, redstarts and bluethroats. These birds are distinguished by the bright color of their feathers, for example, the bluethroat has a blue breast, and the robin has feathers of all colors - red, blue, greenish, and even red.

Each bird tries to return to its old nest. Swallows arriving in April are no exception. The Russian people love and respect swallows very much. Many signs are associated with them. For example, if a swallow flies low above the ground, it means it will rain soon. People try to protect the swallow's nest until next spring.

Birds and their nests

An amazing fact, but birds are capable of building the most grandiose structures. But how much do we humans know which bird has which nest?

The places that birds arrange for laying eggs differ from each other, and sometimes very dramatically. But all types of bird nests can be divided according to their location:

How to distinguish a swallow from other birds?

Swallows are very small in size, with a small head. The legs are short and thin. The male and female differ in color, although most often this difference is invisible to the naked eye. Swallows spend most of their time in the air, but if they descend to the ground, you can see how clumsy their gait is. Birds eat insects. It is noteworthy that they are capable of hunting only in flight.

The main feature of swallows' appearance is their forked tail, reminiscent of a slingshot.

The birds have a friendly character, so they do not conflict with other birds, and even settle nearby with individuals of their own species. If a swallow is attacked by a larger one, it will not only fight bravely, but will also defend its nest to the last. If a cat or a person sneaks into the nest, you can be sure: the little bird will selflessly defend its property.

Types of swallows

It is difficult to find a person in Russia who has never seen a swallow in his life. But not only can the swallow be found on the territory of the Russian Federation, but more than one species lives here. Our country is home to about 7 species of this bird:

1. Village One can guess from the name: this bird is well known to village residents. The swallow has a completely black back, and the neck and forehead are red-brown. The barn swallow's nest is made of straw, clay and, surprisingly, feathers and hair, which are one of the most durable materials for birds.
2. Rufous-rumped Swallow. It looks a little like the previous species of swallow, but it has several long black feathers above its tail. Surprisingly, sometimes the melancholy song of the red-rumped swallow resembles the meowing of a cat or even a small kitten.
3. Shore swallow. The shore swallow is practically the smallest swallow of all available species. The beak is quite short and hard, and the color is inconspicuous - gray-brown plumage.
4. Little swallow. Outwardly, it is very similar to the shorebird, but the bird is smaller in size. They usually fly away around the end of August, but the arrival of small swallows is recorded at the end of March - beginning of April.
5. Mountain swallow. It is also called rocky. It resembles brown in color, but is distinguished by an amazing patterned tail, which is best viewed when flying.
6. Thread-tailed swallow. This species is called so because the males have two thin and long feathers on their tails, similar to threads. The thread-tailed swallow also has a dazzling white breast and an orange head.
7. White-fronted swallow. The swallow is black in color with a blue-metallic tint. Unfortunately, very few individuals of this species have been recorded in Russia, so many ornithologists generally do not recognize the existence of these swallows on the territory of our country.

These are not all existing species of swallows. But even from this small list we can draw a conclusion about their diversity.

Distribution areas of swallows

The barn swallow can easily be found in any corner of Russia. As for the shore swallow, it is easier to name where it is impossible to meet it: in Australia and Antarctica. Rufous-tailed swallows live on the coast of Lake Baikal, as well as in southern Italy and Sicily. For the winter, they, like most swallows, fly to Africa and India.

The cliff swallow lives in mountainous areas. In Russia these are the territories of the Caucasus and Crimea. The white-fronted swallow can be found in North America, and it winters in and in Mexico.

Where do swallows nest?

Swallows are very attached to places arranged for laying eggs. When birds build nests, their location becomes the only place that the swallow can remember. The instinct is so blind that if the swallow returns to feed the chicks, and the nest is not in the same place, then it will mistakenly begin to feed strangers.

The barn swallow prefers not to fly outside the village or village, so its nest is usually there. Sometimes killer whales get used to people and nest right under the roofs of houses. There it is easier for them to get food, and there is also protection from wind and rain.

Shore swallows and little swallows nest near the water, digging holes in the sand with their beaks. They live in small groups, colonies.

The cliff swallow prefers to build a nest in the mountains or rocks, away from people and noise. Although there are nests located in walls and tunnels. Her cup-shaped nest is built from clay, saliva and grass.

Mating season of swallows

The mating season of swallows lasts from May to August, and during this time the female makes two clutches of eggs. There are up to 7 eggs in one clutch. After two weeks, the chicks appear. After 3 weeks spent in the nest, the chicks are able to fly, so they begin to feed on their own. Females choose partners for a long period, and when choosing, they are guided by the length of the tail: the male with the longest tail wins.

Sometimes males remain alone for the season. Then, upon returning from wintering, they begin to help other pairs in building a nest and even feed the chicks.

Signs associated with swallows

One of the signs was mentioned above: if a swallow flies low, it means there will be rain. But there are others. For example, if a swallow builds a nest near the roof of a house, then good people live in this house. But if you harm the swallow, then misfortune and grief will haunt you for a long time. If you go broke, freckles will appear on your face - also a rather interesting sign. If swallows arrive earlier than usual, it means the year will be fruitful. And if you take a stone from a bird’s nest, it will become a talisman and a talisman.

The nest is designed to protect eggs and chicks from overheating and hypothermia. During egg incubation, it helps retain parental warmth. Thanks to the nest, the chicks grow in comfort and safety during the period of complete dependence on their parents.

In many birds, the male is responsible for selecting a site for the nest on his territory, and the female usually participates in its construction. Joint construction is quite common.

In pigeons, the male collects building material, and the female builds the nest. In ravens, both partners collect material, but only the female is involved in construction. In woodpeckers and kingfishers, both partners hollow out a hole in the tree. Swans and birds of prey also build nests in pairs.

Most birds use plants as building material for their nests. Wooded areas provide the widest choice - from large sticks to thin twigs, roots and strips of bark. Hummingbirds use lichens. Asian warblers, known as tailor's warblers, select large leaves from one branch, sew their edges together, and build a nest inside. Song zonotrichia and bobolink, nesting in meadows or fields, use cultivated and weedy grasses. Waterfowl - ducks, coots, grebes - collect aquatic plants for nests.

Birds are very creative with many other materials, both natural and man-made. Wool, feathers and spider webs are often used. Swallows and flamingos make mud nests. The smoky needletail attaches its nest to the surface using saliva. Rag scraps, paper, and plastic also often end up in bird nests.

For centuries, birds have nested among people. It is considered traditional that storks build nests on chimneys. Swifts prefer pipes to depressions in natural objects. Pigeons have long mastered the eaves of buildings. Owls live in barns and bell towers; swallows - under bridges and roofs The house sparrow is called so because of the place where it nests.

Birdhouses provide shelter for cavity-nesting birds, including siales, nuthatches, and even some ducks (the Carolina duck often uses the boxes). House wrens clearly appreciate human “gifts”: they nest in any hollow object - a rusty tin can, an empty flower pot, an old shoe. In the past, in Indian villages, purple wood swallows nested in empty bottle gourds hanging on the branches. Today, this species is one of the most voracious insectivores - a welcome inhabitant of cities and villages throughout North America. They live in special multi-apartment birdhouses mounted on high poles.

Nest construction

The most common nest shape is cupped. It is preferred by blackbirds, finches and other small birds nesting on land. Such nests are made by compacting building material. The female blackbird builds the nest herself, although the male helps her by bringing material. Having found a suitable place - a horizontally growing branch, a fork in a tree or a convenient ledge - the bird begins to crouch and circle around it. Sometimes several places are tried. With the help of her beak and legs, the female constructs the foundation of the future nest from twigs and blades of grass. Standing in the middle, she places softer materials around herself to form walls, then spins in place, compacting the structure with her chest and wings so that a compact bowl is formed. After this, a bedding of earth and grass is made in the shape of a bowl, and finally, the inside of the nest is lined with a dry and soft layer. All construction takes from 6 to 20 days.

Bird colonies

More than 95% of all seabirds - from penguins and gannets to petrels and guillemots - and almost 15% of the rest nest in colonies. The colonial lifestyle favors contact between potential sexual partners. The calls and actions of neighbors encourage birds to pair up, mate, and build nests more or less simultaneously. This ensures that all the chicks hatch within a short period of time, so that predators are unable to eat them all and cause less damage. In addition, in the colony you can quickly find a replacement for a dead partner and obtain information about the location of food. Colonial nesting allows for joint defense.

It is very important for any bird to protect its chicks from attacks by predators. First of all, the choice of location for the future nest plays a role. Many species rely on camouflage, such as covering the nest with leaves or building it in a burrow. Inaccessibility is also considered an advantage. The top of a tall tree, a coastal cliff, or an isolated island will provide protection from terrestrial predators. Tropical frogs suspend elongated, sac-like nests from the tips of thin twigs, leaving snakes and other poison dart predators high and dry.

Project protection

Relevance of the project

Birds are part of wildlife. They enliven forests, fields, groves, and parks with sonorous songs, pleasing the eye with their bright plumage, mobility, and beauty.

All of them eat large amounts of plant and animal food, thereby having a significant impact on wildlife. Birds are especially important in regulating the number of insects and small rodents. Unfortunately, birds are in trouble: currently, every second bird species is threatened with extinction. This means that our planet is facing an environmental disaster! We must protect birds to preserve life on Earth. And for this it is necessary to study the lifestyle of birds, monitor their numbers, where and how they breed. That's whysubject my project "Types of bird nests."

Target: find out the structural features of bird nests.

Tasks:

1) Get acquainted with the variety of forms of bird's nests;

2) Find out how birds build nests and what building material they use;

3) Find out the process of building bird nests.

Hypothesis: Suppose that acquaintance with birds' nests,will attract my classmates to read books about nature, will make me think about nature conservation.

Stages of work on the project:

Stage 1 – preparatory

Drawing up an activity plan;

Selection of literary works about nature.

Stage 2 – main

Processing and processing of information (using Internet sources)

Preparation of the presentation “Types of nests”;

Stage 3 – final Presentation of work results

Expected result

After completing the project, I will learn a lot of useful and surprising things about birds and the diversity of bird nests. I will learn to work with various information sources. I will disseminate the facts obtained using the presentation. I will take part in the propaganda “Saving birds means saving life on Earth.”

Birds, like many other animals, build various structures called nests to breed their offspring. Among the feathered tribe there are both real ace architects and careless builders. But they are careless not because they are too lazy to build, it’s just that even the most primitive structure is quite enough for the normal development of their chicks.

Based on the nature of the design, five types of nests can be distinguished; you can see them on the slide.

1. Nest on a natural substrate without a special recess or bedding. This is the most primitive type of nest, characteristic of many open-nesting species. Open nesters include the guillemot, which lays a single egg on a bare rock ledge; the common nightjar, which lays two eggs on the forest floor; sandpiper, which lays two or three eggs directly on the ground.

2. A nest on a natural substrate with a depression made by the bird itself. This type of nest is somewhat more complicated than the first, although quite simple. Here the bird makes a hole and sparsely lines it with bedding. Sometimes there is no litter. Such nests are characteristic of many ground-nesting birds: chickens, hazel grouse, bustards, tubenoses, most waders, guillemots, some terns, owls, bee-eaters, rollers, some passerines and others. Nests of this type are quite uniform in different species. The differences are expressed in the size and depth of the hole, as well as the nature of the litter (some have more of it, others have less, and others have none at all).

3. A nest with an artificial bottom and low, loose walls made by the bird itself. This type includes nests that are made entirely by the bird from a special material. In the simplest case, the nest is a hole in the ground, thickly lined with litter and lined with down, as ducks do.

In another case, this structure consists of scraps of herbaceous plants folded into a loose heap, in the center of which there is a depression for eggs, sometimes lined with down or having a soft bedding. Such nests are found in swans, cranes, loons, grebes, rails, bitterns, some gulls and a number of other ground-nesting birds. Sometimes along the edge of the nest there is a roller made of pieces of plants, as, for example, in some gulls.

4. The nest is in the form of a bowl with tightly woven or molded edges and bottom. This type of nest is more complex than all previous ones, and its construction requires special movements and great skill from the birds. It is most common in passerine birds. There is great diversity among nests of this type. Thus, the nests of linnets and gray flycatchers are more or less flat cups with loose walls. Somewhat deeper, but also relatively loosely woven, are the nests of the common bunting, tree pipit and other ground-nesting passerines and some railing birds. The nests of orioles, thrushes, finches and especially warblers are more advanced structures: they look like a deep bowl with thicker and stronger walls. Some birds (thrushes, magpies, etc.) cement the inside of their nests with earth or clay, so that a hard cup is inserted into the nest.

5. Closed nest with side entrance. This is the most perfect type of nest, characteristic exclusively of passerine birds. Such, for example, is a skillfully made nest of a wren: a ball woven from stems or moss, with an entrance hole on the side.

The remez's nest is even more perfect: woven from thin plant fibers and equipped with an inlet pipe, it looks like a wallet. In addition, the nest is suspended on thin branches and is completely inaccessible to enemies.

The division of birds by type of nest that I have given is very approximate. Between them there are also transitional forms of nests.

Based on the location of the nest, it can be divided into the following groups:

1 . Nests on the ground have many birds: chickens, rails, cranes, bustards, waders, gulls, guillemots, geese, ducks, some raptors, nightjars and owls, many passerines and other birds. Nests are quite varied in design, ranging from nests without a recess and litter (the first type) to nests in the form of a bowl (the second type). As an exception, closed nests with a side entrance are found on the ground (for example, in the warbler, wren). The largest number of nests arranged on the ground belong to the second and third types. Birds that live in a wide variety of conditions nest on the ground: in the forest, tundra, steppe, mountains, swamps, along the banks of reservoirs, etc. In accordance with this, the locations of the nests are quite diverse: on a flat soil surface, on dry hummocks and hillocks, on cliffs and rocks.

2. Nests in burrows and other earthen shelters . Such nests are characteristic of a fairly significant number of birds from various orders (penguins, tubenoses, guillemots, rollers, Anseriformes, passerines). Among them, nests can be distinguished in earthen burrows, in rock cracks and between stones, in earthen voids.

In birds that nest in burrows and other earthen shelters, the nests are not complex in design and belong to the second, third and fourth types.

3 . Nests in tree hollows. Many birds nest in hollows: woodpeckers, some owls, rollers, pigeons and many passerines (tits, flycatchers, jackdaws, starlings, redstarts, etc.). Some of them hollow out a hollow themselves, such as woodpeckers; but most birds use ready-made hollows, abandoned by woodpeckers or formed naturally (owls, pigeons, tits, etc.). In this group, two subgroups of nests can be distinguished, differing from each other in the degree of closure: hollows and half-hollows. Nests made in hollows are quite varied in design. They can be classified into the first four types. The last type is most often characteristic of semi-hollow nesting birds, while the first and second types are most often characteristic of true hollow nesting birds.

4. Nests in cracks of stone buildings , under roofs and on the eaves of houses. In such places, many birds of the so-called anthropogenic landscape make their nests, that is, those living near human habitation. These include pigeons, sparrows, barn and city swallows, stonechat, bluethroat, white wagtail, jackdaw, swift, hoopoe, little owl, etc.

Nests on the branches of trees and bushes , characteristic of a large number of species of predators, pigeons, wading birds and especially passerines, represent the most durable artificial structures. They are very diverse in design and belong to the third, fourth and fifth types. The last type - closed nests with a side entrance - is found almost exclusively on the branches of trees and shrubs. This should also include nests made by birds on the stems of reeds and other large herbaceous plants.

Types of nests

Large birds of prey are buildingplatform nests , they look like a bunch of twigs with a depression in the middle. Such nests are very large, and their construction takes a lot of time and effort, so large birds use the same nest for several years in a row, but every year they complete it by weaving new twigs and branches into the nest.

Little songbirds are buildingbowl nests between the branches of a bush or tree. They carefully intertwine thin twigs and dry grass to form neat bowls, and line the bottom with moss or down.

Blackbirds build theirsockets on support , orioles' nests look like long wicker bags, swifts attach their nests to the wall, and swallows build them in a hollow or hole on the river bank. Cuckoos, for example, do not build nests at all, because they throw eggs to other birds, which survive them as their own.

The process of building bird nests

Construction material

Before starting to build a nest, the bird chooses a suitable place, near which there should be a lot of food and which will be difficult for predators to reach. The bird brings to this place in its beak and paws various twigs, leaves, moss and other materials suitable for building a nest. Then she begins to build a nest from these materials with her beak, and helps herself with her paws.

In some bird species, only the male or female can build the nest, while other species build the nest together. Sometimes the male builds several nests, and the female then chooses which one she likes best and lays eggs there.

The process of building a swallow's nest.

City swallows begin building a nest by creating support for the bottom. First of all, the birds place lumps of raw clay in the form of an arc on the wall, one next to the other; these lumps easily stick to uneven surfaces. Then the work stops until the next morning, that is, a break is taken so that the clay is completely dry, after which the swallows put a second layer of lumps on it so that it protrudes above the first layer. The next morning they repeat this work again. The further you go, the easier the work goes, because the molded base of the nest soon begins to protrude onto a finger above the wall, and the swallows no longer need to cling to the wall: they can now sit firmly on the raised edge of the nest. Day after day, the birds lay one layer of clay on top of another until, finally, the round nest is closed on all sides and takes on a completely finished appearance. Only on the front side of its swallows do they leave a narrow flight hole. They then quickly line the nest with hair and soft feathers.

While working on the project, I came across many interesting concepts and compiled a dictionary.

My dictionary:

hanging nest - a nest attached to a support (branches, plant stems) not by the bottom, but by the upper parts of the walls or edges.

Tray - internal cavity of the nest. This term is used only in relation to cup-shaped nests or nests made in a depression in the soil. Sometimes the expression “flat tray” is used, which means a shallow (in depth) nest with very low edges or no edges at all.

Letok - an entrance hole into a hollow or into a nest closed on all sides.

External lining of the nest - finishing of the outer walls of the nest; in some species it consists of a material other than the walls of the nest themselves.

Nest litter - (inner lining of the nest), the material with which the tray is lined and on which the eggs lie. It usually consists of a different and more delicate material than the inner walls of the nest.

Socket diameter - the distance between the extreme points on opposite outer side walls at the widest point.

Tray diameter - the distance between the opposite walls of the nest at its widest point.

The height of the nest is the distance from the outer surface of the bottom to the upper edge of the nest.

Tray depth (depth of the nest) - the distance from the inner surface of the bottom to the upper edge of the nest.

Taphole diameter - the distance between the opposite edges of the tap hole. Sometimes the entrance is not round, but oval or almost rectangular in shape. In this case, two measurements of the tap hole are made - height and width.

Finishing work on the project, I made the following conclusions.

Conclusions:

The size of the nest depends on the time the chicks live in it. In chicks, the nest is more spacious and deep. In brooding birds it is intended only to accommodate eggs.

The nest is designed to hold the eggs all together. Therefore, its type and size depends on the number of eggs in the clutch.

The type of nest is influenced by the bird's habitat. If the soil is damp, then the walls of the nest are thicker. If it is dry, the walls are thin.

The location of the nest is influenced by the presence of natural enemies. The more enemies, the more hidden the nest.

Information sources

Akimushkin I. I. “The Path of Legends”

Bianchi V.V. “Forest houses”

"Birds. Complete encyclopedia"

Ozhegov S.I. "Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language"

Internet resources

Annex 1

Table “Structural features of bird nests”

№

Bird name

Description of the nest

Nest location

ostrich

wide, shallow hole

in sand

penguin

cairn

on the ground

partridge

a small hole lined with dry stems and plant rags

in the soil in the middle of a field, in thick grass under the cover of a bush, tree or hummock

pelican

pile of plants with shallow tray

on the ground or in the reeds

stork

from branches and twigs, renewed and completed annually

on the roofs of houses, wire supports, high poles

flamingo

raking the silt into a pile, trampling it down, making a slide and a depression

on the shore

hawk

from small twigs, cements with earth, plugs holes with pebbles, covers the inside with manure

on the trees

weed chickens

hole, 1.5 m deep, 2.5 m in diameter, built over 3 months, constructing a hill covered with sand

in sand

crane

find their old nest - a depression lined with dry vegetation

on the ground

cuckoo

owl

doesn't build nests

someone else's hollow or old crow's nest

hummingbird

nest the size of a walnut shell

on the underside of the sheet

kingfisher

burrow, from 30cm to 1m long, ending in a cramped nesting chamber

above the water, on a steep bank

woodpecker

hollow

on the tree

stove maker

made of clay, size 20*30cm, weight 4-7 kg

on a tree or rooftops

martin

urban

Nest - a basket fashioned from damp earth and saliva

under a canopy - roof, window cornice, balcony

lark

shallow hole

in the ground, under a bush of grass

remez

the nest looks like a knitted mitten, the entrance to which is at the end of the “thumb” finger

hangs on branches

weaver

"Dormitory" from 800 to 1000 nests

on the tree

bowerbird

huts, canopies, turrets

decorated with shells, flowers, leaves, stones

on the ground

sparrows

spherical, with thick walls and side entrances

in the trees, under the roofs of houses

can take over someone else's nest

crows

a pile of branches with a depression

on the trees

tit

fill the internal space with down, feathers, scraps of wool

the nest can stretch, because all parts are fastened with cobwebs

They use holes in trees, pipes, and abandoned shoes to make nests.

magpie

a spherical nest made of thick branches; a roof is built from thin branches for camouflage

on the trees

crossbill

a nest made of thin flexible branches, pieces of dry moss or lichen

at the bottom there is soft and warm fluff, small feathers

spruce on branches

city ​​pigeons

(sisari)

dry twigs, blades of grass, roots, straw, wire, wood shavings

under the roofs of houses

duck

a large pile of grass or branches with a nesting hole, liberally lined with down around the edges

close to the water

redstart

cup-shaped nest made of dry, soaked stems of herbaceous plants, wood fibers, with an admixture of leaves, moss and pieces of bark

someone else's hollow, excavation of a tree trunk, pile of brushwood or firewood

black-headed gull

a pile of last year's aquatic plants: stems , , ,

marshy raft, small grassy island, swamp, coastal meadow

eagle

nest made of branches, tree bark, about 2 meters in diameter

strong tall trees, mountains

oriole

a basket of branches suspended from long fibers of grass

forks of thin tree branches

Appendix 2

How birds build nests.

The shore swallow, bee-eaters and kingfishers dig their holes with their beaks, pushing the ground back with their paws. The puffin digs with the help of its paws and, possibly, its beak.

Thrush (most complex house)

The work of building a complex song thrush nest can be divided into three stages: construction, plastering, drying. The main materials for the nest are lichens, herbaceous stems, small twigs, and less often dry moss. First of all, lichens from trees and grass are pulled into a shapeless heap. The blackbirds then begin to shape the pile into a nest shape. Arriving with a bunch of lichens in its beak, the thrush lingers in the nest longer than usual. Turning and pushing the lichens with its chest and sides in different directions, and then turning, it makes a depression. In this case, a large amount of trained lichen falls to the ground. Soon the shape of the nest emerges, a depression appears, and the boundaries of the walls are established. At this time, the first dry twigs are woven into the nest. The work is carried out by the male and female very amicably, starting at dawn and ending with the onset of darkness. They collect materials near the nest, managing to make an average of 13 flights per hour. When building a nest, the song thrush is very careful. Sometimes it is enough to come close to the nest in full view for the building to be abandoned. The work of building a nest takes two to three days, after which the “plastering” of the inner surface of the nest begins. The material for plaster is wood dust and rotten wood moistened with saliva, clay and damp earth. The number of birds arriving at the nest is reduced to 8 per hour, which is apparently due to the more remote location of these materials. Birds stay in the nest for no more than 1-3 minutes each time. The amount of moisture in the plaster layer is sometimes so large that you can see liquid dirt flowing inside from the walls of the nest. Obviously, water is added to the material in copious amounts. Plastering work takes about half a day, after which the birds leave the nest for a day to dry. At this time, both birds do not fly up to the nest, but are close to it. A day later, the first egg is laid in the dry nest.

Most birds whose nest rests on some object first create a base for the nest, then build the side walls and then line the nest with soft material, and cover the outside with substances that make the nest invisible among the surrounding environment. The very process of making a nest is accompanied by characteristic movements of the whole body, during which the bird sits deeply in the nest and trembles tensely and quickly. With these movements of the body, the bird apparently compresses the nesting material according to the shape of the body and arranges individual blades of grass more tightly. In the blackbird, this process continues for exactly four seconds, after which the female rises from the tray for five seconds and then lowers herself and repeats the same movements. Each time the bird descends into the nest, it turns about 35° compared to its previous position and after two or three turns in one direction it begins to turn inthe opposite side. This pressing is repeated several times and can be repeated up to 30 times in a row.

Obviously, these movements, first in one direction and then in the other, create a dense, well-woven fabric of the nest walls, which amazes with its openwork and at the same time the strength of the structure in many species of birds. In addition, the bird strengthens and weaves with its beak less flexible and long blades of grass into the wall of the nest.

As a rule, the nest is built mainly in the morning, when it and the collected material are moist with dew and pliable.

When building an even more complex nest, birds pierce the walls with their beaks and a blade of grass, pull the latter through the wall and, repeating this maneuver many times, gradually strengthen the walls of the nest and make them denser.Dressmaker's Warbler with one fiber it can sew 3-4 pairs of opposing holes on the edges of rolled leaves, inside which it makes a nest.

The construction of hanging nests begins with preliminary braiding of the end of the branch with long fibers. The hanging ends of these fibers form the first base for the walls of the nest. The oriole, for example, first of all prepares fibers for itself from oak, wool, thread and other material, holding it with its paws and stretching it in length with its beak. The bird wraps both ends of each fiber around two branches of the fork and glues them with its saliva. The result is a shallow basket suspended from the fork of the branches. Pressing the bottom of the basket with its body, the bird gradually deepens it. Then the oriole stretches new fibers in the same way, crossing them with each other from below. After each new layer, the oriole continues to deepen the nest until it finally forms a deep pocket. The inside of the nest is lined with straws and blades of grass, which the bird places around the walls of the nest, sticking their ends into the outer wall. And finally, she plugs all the remaining holes in the nest with fluff, cobwebs, pieces of bark and other auxiliary material.

The main tool of birds when building a nest is the beak. Just by the external shape of the beak, you can determine how skillfully a bird can build a nest. For example, the nightjar, with its short, wide beak, almost completely hidden between the feathers and bristles, is completely unable to build a nest for itself from branches, fibers and hair, as most birds do. In the same way, swallows, with their short and wide beaks, cannot weave material for a nest. On the contrary, the thin and rather long beak of songbirds is like an awl, with which you can easily weave the material from which the nest is built, or like thin tweezers, which are very convenient for grabbing the thinnest blades of grass and hairs and pulling them through the walls of the nest. However, if we take the nest of a long-tailed tit, we can say that even a bird with a very small beak can build skillful structures.

Strong beak woodpecker - this is a real chisel, with which the bird easily splits a tree and makes a hollow for a nest, and the long sharp beak of the kingfisher, similar to a pick, is a convenient tool for digging nesting holes in coastal cliffs. The beak of a bird, adapted for capturing food, acquires a certain shape in accordance with its characteristics and bears traces of adaptation to the construction of a certain type of nest.

In addition to their beaks, birds also use their paws to build nests. With the help of the latter and their beak, they tear the bast of a tree into fibers, separate the moss into pieces, and birds of prey even bring in their paws material for building a nest.

A male and a female usually take part in the construction of the nest, or one female builds it, and the male brings her building material.

The duration of nest construction, even the most complex one, is usually short, despite the fact that the birds work on it only a few hours a day. It varies among different birds, but always at least several days. Thus, a female missle thrush makes a nest in 7-8 days, and sometimes in 3 days. The city swallow finishes its nest in about two weeks. During the nest building period, the barn swallow makes up to 500 flights for building material. The complex, spherical, covered with pieces of lichen on the outside and lined with feathers on the inside (and there are up to two thousand of them in a nest), the construction of a long-tailed tit is completed in 18 days, and the nest itself is ready, in essence, already on the ninth day. The common kingfisher finishes making a burrow up to 1 m long within 7-12 days. The golden bee-eater, whose nesting burrows are up to 2 m long, works for 10-20 days, and the slender-billed petrel for 10-40 days. Nest building lasts the longest in birds that use secretions from the salivary glands to build the nest. Thus, the swiftlets mentioned above build a nest for over 40 days.

Many birds use the same nest for a number of years. Such nests include hollows, molded nests, sometimes earthen burrows and nests made from tree branches. All other nests, made of grass and other fragile materials, despite their shape and architectural perfection, last only one season. Every year, the nests of warblers, warblers, wrens, chaffinches and many other small birds are rebuilt.

But it would be wrong to think that nests used for a number of years are occupied by the same pair. Changing couples or individual partners is a widespread phenomenon. As banding shows, cases of both members of last year's pair returning to the old nest are not frequent. This is explained by the fact that most monogamous couples form for one season and an annual change of partners is possible.

Many nests may even be occupied by other bird species. Changing nest owners is especially common among predators and cavity nesters. For example, a spotted eagle may settle in a buzzard's nest, then a hawk, and in subsequent years again a buzzard. The peregrine falcon uses the nest of any bird of prey that it comes across and satisfies its requirements. Sometimes he even takes advantage of an abandoned eagle's nest or takes a crow's nest by force. The initial builders of nests, subsequently used by birds of prey, mainly falcons, in most cases are the buzzard and the hoodie.

Hollows made by woodpeckers are widely used by many cavity-nesting birds. As a rule, during the nesting season, woodpeckers annually hollow out new hollows and abandon the old ones. They are inhabited by other birds: most species of tits, nuthatch, garden redstart, pied flycatcher, sparrow, starling. The hollows of large yellowtails are inhabited by small owls. There are even known examples of fights over hollows between starlings and the woodpeckers themselves, with the winners usually being the starlings who drive the woodpeckers away.

When examining hollows, you can often find traces of birds nesting twice, three times or more, which can be easily determined by the number of layers of nesting litter. In a woodpecker's hollow, the pied flycatcher usually nests first, then the great tit, then the nuthatch. Repeated changes in the inhabitants of a hollow can often be observed even during one summer. Many hollows have been nesting sites for various birds for many years.

Breeding colonies have existed for many decades. Thus, rooks use the same nest many times in a slightly modified form. However, observations show that the old nest is used only as the basis of a new one, and the side walls are built anew, and the tray is always re-lined. A significant portion of old nests are taken away by birds and used as building material for new buildings. Although there is no exact data on the duration of use of the same nest by birds in such a nesting colony, it can still be assumed that, subject to annual repairs, it is used by rooks for many years.

Other birds include the nests of weed chickens that live in Australia and the surrounding islands. Their nesting method is very different from other birds. It is most simple in maleo - one of the types of weed chickens living on the island. Sulawesi. At the end of the rainy season, the female leaves the forests and heads on foot to the sandy coast of the island, covering a distance of up to 30 km. The female makes a hole in the sand, lays an egg and returns on foot. After a week or two, the journey is repeated. So she lays 6-8 eggs, the incubation of which is carried out due to the heat of sand heated by the sun. The hatched chicks emerge from the sand half-feathered, run from the shore to the forest and on the same day begin to fly a little.

The jungle weed fowl, which lives in Australia, the Philippines and some other islands, makes its nest somewhat differently. In the jungle, she rakes up a huge pile of earth and vegetation with a diameter of up to 10-15 m and a height of 4-6 m. She makes a tunnel up to 1 m long in it and lays eggs there. Incubation, which lasts 63 days, is influenced by the heat generated by decaying vegetation. The nesting heap is built up annually.

Nesting is much more difficult inocellated chicken , inhabiting the scrapers of Australia. Birds are busy with nesting activities almost all year round. In April, when the weather is dry, the male makes a hole in the ground up to 5 m in diameter and about 1 m deep. Throughout June and July, he collects leaves within a radius of approximately 30-40 m into this hole until a tubercle up to 30 cm high forms above it. Then the rains begin. The male covers the wet leaves with a layer of earth up to 30-40 cm thick. The process of leaf rotting begins in the heap, and the temperature in it quickly rises. The male does not leave the heap, monitors it and only in August allows the female to approach it to lay the first egg. If the weather is bad (damp), the male does not allow the female to approach the heap. She drops the egg and comes only after 4 days. The eggs are placed in an upright position in a hole dug in the center of the pile. So gradually 20-30 eggs of varying degrees of “incubation” accumulate in the incubator chamber. Incubation duration is 60 days. The chicks leave the chamber every 4 and sometimes 8 days. The female does not see the chicks at all, and the male does not notice them; his concern is the incubator. He constantly monitors the temperature of the heap by placing his beak on its surface. At the same time, he either rakes some of the sand from the pile, ventilating it, then rakes it again. This takes him many hours a day. The last chick emerges from the heap in April. In the same month, the male begins all work on the construction of the next incubator.

Appendix 3

On the territory of the Chelyabinsk region in the last decade, 338 species of birds were found, of which 253 species nest, 7 more species are likely to nest, 45 species are found in the region regularly on migration (33) and migrations in the summer (3) and winter (9) periods, 26 species flies into the region during pre- and post-breeding migrations and the status of 7 species is not clear.

120 species are rare, 36 are rare, 52 are few, 115 are common and 15 are abundant.

3 species have disappeared from the region over the past 50 years and 6 species have appeared.

The construction technique, final shape and main characteristics of bird buildings - primarily their strength and heat capacity - are determined by the properties of the nesting material.

Birds simply pile up thick, rigid branches of trees and shrubs, trying to fit them together as tightly as possible. Large birds of prey and storks build their massive platform nests in trees in this way, achieving truly outstanding results.

Perennial nests

Once folded, the nest, clearly visible from all sides, becomes a landmark of the area for many years. It will be occupied for decades by different individuals, who, due to their natural industriousness, will also make their contribution to the accumulation of nesting material. The thickness of the platform will grow from year to year, the platform will turn into an impressive tower.

The famous bald eagle nest near Vermilion in Ohio (USA) was 2.5 meters in diameter and more than 3 meters high, weighing approximately 2 tons. This is probably the most massive structure of birds that, without any stretch, can be called a typical nest intended for the breeding of offspring by a married couple. Only slightly inferior to this colossal structure are the nests of Pacific Steller's sea eagles in Kamchatka. The size of the black vulture's nest resembles the wheel of the heaviest dump truck, reaching a two-meter diameter and almost a meter in thickness. Taking advantage of the peaceful nature of the owners, entire bird families are housed within its walls, and they tolerate each other quite well.

Materials for building nests

Many birds resort to this same simple layer-by-layer folding technique. For aquatic birds, the material used is not branches, but various fragments of aquatic plants. The material is laid in a wet state, which, when dried, imparts additional strength to the building due to the effect of “gluing” the drying fragments.

Small birds with miniature nests have cobwebs among their favorite materials, and they spend a lot of time searching for them. Being sticky and durable, it acts as a cementing material, holding together individual layers of dry grass, and perfectly secures nests to tree branches.

Nests of tropical sunbirds

The nests of tropical sunbirds are very unique in design and easily recognizable. In most species, the structure looks like a very elongated pear, hanging on the tip of a thin branch or suspended from the underside of a palm or banana leaf. In the lower expanded part of the “pear” there is a closed nesting chamber with a narrow side entrance, usually covered on top by a small canopy. The building is very miniature, and even a tiny sunbird does not fit inside completely, so the head of the hen with a long curved beak is almost always visible from the outside. The main building material is plant fluff, held together with a large amount of cobwebs, which is also used for hanging the nest.

Thanks to the large amount of cobwebs shimmering in the sunlight, the nests of some species look very elegant and resemble Christmas tree decorations that, through a misunderstanding, ended up on a palm tree. In general, the love of sunbirds for webs is all-consuming - the Russian name spider-eaters, applied to some representatives of this group of birds, should be changed to spider-lovers. Some sunbirds do not build nests at all. Having found a good layer of cobwebs in a secluded corner in the crown of a tree, they lightly rake it in one place and lay eggs in the resulting tray.

Warbler nests

Worthy of mention are the nests of warblers, skillfully mounted on vertical stems standing next to each other. The stems pass through the side walls of the nest, which is held on supports mainly by friction or “glued” using putty made of silt and mud. The shape of the warbler's nest resembles a cylinder or a ball with a truncated top, neatly twisted from blades of grass and reed leaves. The edges of the tray are always tightly pulled together, the inside is sometimes “plastered” with the same mud, which, when dried, forms a smooth surface. Sometimes warblers attach a nest to living, growing stems of nettle, meadowsweet or fireweed, and in the month that elapses from the time the building is laid until the chicks fly, it sometimes rises up almost half a meter. The nest is attached with the side walls to the reed stems.

“Master of Pottery” – clay nests

The catalog of building materials for birds also includes damp clay soil. The main bets on it were made by swallows, rock nuthatches, magpie larks and some representatives of the family with the eloquent name of ovenbirds. Molded nests are among the most skillful bird structures and resemble pottery. They are molded from small lumps of clay and therefore almost always have a characteristic finely bumpy surface, so that by the number of bumps you can quite accurately calculate how many portions of material were laid during the construction process.

Magpie larks

Magpie larks are small, colorfully colored birds native to the arid regions of Australia. Contrary to their name, from an evolutionary point of view they are more raven-like and indeed resemble magpies with their tails half-cut. They are quite satisfied with the simplest cup-shaped nests, open at the top, mounted on tree branches and typical for most ravens. The only difference is that the larks' nests are entirely made of clay. This gives only one advantage - the ability to build on thin horizontal branches, “sticking” a building to them, while for nests made of “standard” material, which does not have the properties of cement, it is necessary to look for a fork in the branches or strengthen them close to the trunk along which a marsupial marten or a snake may climb up.

Related materials:

The fastest birds

Great rock nuthatch nests

The nest of a great rock nuthatch looks like a narrow-necked pitcher glued to the rock with its bottom. The neck of the jug, that is, the entrance to the nest, is directed downward and to the side. Such a “jug” usually weighs about 4-5 kilograms, but there are also more massive buildings. The thickness of the walls reaches 7 centimeters, and the strength is such that it is impossible to break the nest with your hands. Nuthatches use the mucus of crushed caterpillars, beetles and butterflies as a cementing solution, mercilessly smearing them on the surface of the nest, which over time is covered here and there with a motley pattern of wings of unfortunate victims.

Swallows' nests

Molded swallow nests are distinguished by a wide variety of shapes. The simplest one is the open-top structure of barn swallows - exactly half of a cup neatly cut along the length, glued along the cut to the wall, certainly under the cover of some kind of canopy - a cornice or rocky ledge. City swallows build a nest, closed on all sides, with a narrow side entrance. Most often, the shape of the building is close to the quarter of a ball, attached from above and behind to two mutually perpendicular planes - usually to the wall and the roof canopy.

The nest of the red-rumped swallow is distinguished by its extreme elegance of form. It consists of half a jug cut lengthwise with a rather long neck and is attached directly to the ceiling.

Ovenbird nests

In the art of handling clay, the ovenbird bird that lives in the Argentine pampas has no competitors. In size and shape, its structure resembles a soccer ball attached to a strong tree branch or the top of a pole. It looks simple in appearance, but commands respect for its solidity, reaching a weight of 10 kilograms.

The side entrance leads to a fairly spacious interior room - a kind of vestibule, to the back wall of which is attached the nesting chamber itself - a deep pocket fashioned from clay, somewhat similar to a barn swallow's nest. It is not easy to squeeze into this “pocket,” because stove makers leave a very narrow gap between the ceiling of the lobby and the upper edge of the “pocket,” so they do not have to worry about uninvited guests.

Why do birds build nests out of clay?

Clay is malleable during construction and gives high strength to finished buildings. Why did these advantages turn out to be in demand by the “construction industry” of birds on such a limited scale? The widespread use of clay for the construction of bird's nests is hampered by its endless vagaries depending on the weather. Either it is too hot for it, and it dries out, often forcing a long pause in construction that has already begun. On the contrary, it is too damp, and the newly laid layers of clay refuse to dry and harden, which also entails an unplanned pause in construction.

In addition, it is advisable to build clay nests in the shade. Once in the sun, they can dry out and collapse, and it’s not easy for chicks to sit in a hot clay “stove.” That’s why swallows love to roost under the roofs of buildings, nuthatches avoid building nests on southern-facing rocks and almost always hide them under overhanging rock ledges, and ovenbirds tend to lay eggs as early as possible in the spring, before the sun has yet gained full strength.

Finally, clay nests are very labor intensive. To build their very small nest in ideal weather and full supply of materials, a pair of city swallows needs to deliver from 700 to 1500 portions of clay (excluding dropped ones), which takes at least ten days. Ovenbirds and nuthatches with their massive nests require at least 2,000 clumps, and construction, accompanied by inevitable downtime, lasts for several weeks. Stove makers do not hide their nests from the sun and therefore are forced to do their best to increase their mass in order to reduce the rate of their heating and reduce the range of temperature fluctuations.

But despite all the shortcomings, molded nests still opened up a completely new approach to the problem of safety. Swallows and nuthatches have the ability to “glue” their houses on the steepest rocks, hanging over the rapids of mountain rivers or falling into bottomless abysses, under the ceilings of caves and grottoes in the midst of mysterious twilight and eternal dampness, in a word, in places where predators are unable to reach . In addition, nests fashioned in the form of chambers closed on all sides with a narrow entrance perfectly protect the offspring, and, on occasion, parents from rain and cold.

With the help of clay soil, you can reduce the size of the entrance hole into the hollow, as our common nuthatches do. They settle mainly in the hollows of large spotted woodpeckers with an entrance about 50-60 millimeters in diameter, while for a nuthatch 35 millimeters is quite enough. The nuthatch eliminates the difference by carefully covering the entrance with clay, silt or manure.

Related materials:

Kiwi bird - interesting facts

This activity is purely instinctive in nature. Even if a nuthatch nests in a hollow with a small entrance, it will still generously coat the tree bark around the entrance with clay.

“Don’t give a damn... and build it”

Swift nests

The attitude of swifts to the construction of their nests can be described as “not giving a damn.” The main building material during construction is your own saliva, which has the ability to instantly harden in air.

The swift is the best flyer among all birds. He lives on the fly - he hunts for insects, quenches his thirst, plays a wedding, rests, sleeps, and so on.

The most famous representative of the swift suborder, numbering 58 species, is the black swift - an inhabitant of city attics and birdhouses. The shape of its nests largely depends on the configuration of the nesting space and the presence of foreign nesting material in it. Basically, the nest looks quite ordinary and is a kind of flat cake with raised saucer-like edges.

In terms of design features and construction costs, the most complex and labor-intensive nest is built by the Cayenne swift, which lives in Central and South America. The structure is suspended from an overhanging rocky cornice and looks very much like a thick icicle with a broken tip. The design of the socket is a tube with an entrance from the bottom. Clinging with sharp claws, the swift climbs onto the ledge of the inner wall, where the egg lies. At the top of the tube there is another false entrance, which ends in a dead end. The length of the “icicles” exceeds 60 centimeters, which is four times the length of the builder himself. It’s no wonder that construction takes almost six months and requires patience and dedication from the birds. It is not at all easy to catch plant fibers and feathers in the air and, of course, to produce saliva in quantities sufficient for construction.

With the help of saliva, swifts have the ability to stick eggs at the incubation site - this allows them to make do with the tiniest nests and incubate the clutch in the most incredible position.

The nest of the palm swift, widespread in the tropics of the Eastern Hemisphere, is shaped and sized like a tablespoon without a handle. This "spoon" is glued to the underside of the hanging palm leaf in an almost vertical position. The eggs, naturally, also stick - without this they will immediately fall to the ground. “Newborn” chicks tightly cling with sharp claws to their hanging cradle and hang there for several weeks, just as their incubating parents hung before.

The nest of a palm swift is shielded from tropical downpours by a palm leaf. Crested swifts rely only on themselves to protect their nests from rain. Compared to their own size, they build the smallest nests of any bird.
But not because of a good life, but so that the nest could be completely covered from the rain with one’s own body.

Meanwhile, in the nesting areas of these birds in tropical climates It rains every day, as scheduled - right after lunch, and can be extremely heavy. The structure is a tiny shelf made of several pieces of bark, plant fibers and fluff glued together, glued to the side of a tree branch. There is only enough space for one testicle: the brooding bird has to sit on a branch because the shelf will not support it. Therefore, the branch where the nest is attached should be no thicker than a finger - otherwise the swift will not be able to grab onto it with his fingers. Sitting under a furious tropical downpour, amidst a raging thunderstorm, the crested swift is worthy of becoming a symbol of the parental dedication of birds.

"Carpenters" and "diggers"

Woodpecker nests

What professions have birds not mastered in pursuit of maximum comfort and safety of their nests? Some even had to master the skills of carpenters and diggers. These skills for both are based on the skillful use of the same working tool - their own strong beak, which, depending on the circumstances, can be used as a chisel or instead of a shovel. Therefore, the professions of a carpenter and a digger in the world of birds are quite closely related to each other.

Most of the 200 species of woodpeckers distributed throughout the world are native forest dwellers, and they have no equal in the art of handling trees. When the main forest "carpenter" - Zhelna - gets excited and gets down to business seriously, wood chips up to fifteen centimeters long scatter like a fountain around the "construction site". Zhelna is the largest of our woodpeckers, almost the size of a crow, so she needs a spacious “apartment”. The depth of its hollow reaches 40 centimeters, the internal diameter is 25 centimeters.

Related materials:

Why do birds fly south?

“Construction” is carried out by both partners in turn, and it rarely takes less than two weeks. The work takes place at a height of no lower than 3 meters from the ground, and some pairs climb almost 15 meters. Therefore, in early spring, before the grass has risen, a tree favored by yellow grass can be seen from a distance by large white chips lying at a distance of up to 10-12 meters from the trunk. The hollow of this species - even long abandoned by the “builders”, is easy to recognize by the shape of the entrance - usually it is not round, like those of other woodpeckers, but elliptical, and sometimes almost rectangular, elongated along the trunk.

Most woodpeckers hollow out a new “home” for themselves every year., passing the old one on to the “secondary market” and acting as real benefactors to other birds who are in chronic need of hollows. The hollows of the Great Spotted Woodpecker, the most numerous and widely known “carpenter” of Russian forests, are inhabited mainly by small songbirds - flycatchers, redstarts, and tits. They are quite satisfied with a room with a diameter of 14-15 and a depth of 20-25 centimeters. But the activity of the nest is especially important and even irreplaceable for forest birds, whose voluminous hollows provide shelter for such large birds as owls, pigeons, mergansers and goldeneyes.

In modern forests, old hollow patriarch trees have almost disappeared, so it is almost impossible for owls, owls, and crows to find a natural hollow of suitable size. Unlike other woodpeckers, who tend to change places of residence every year, the woodpecker retains a long-term attachment to old hollows, which does not at all prevent it from building new ones in the spring - “in reserve.”
Despite all their dexterity, woodpeckers still rarely dare to gouge a hollow in the hard wood of a completely healthy tree from start to finish. Therefore, almost all woodpeckers consider aspen to be their favorite tree to go under hollows, with its soft wood susceptible to heart rot. It is possible that by tapping on the trunk before starting “construction”, the woodpecker determines by ear whether it is worth starting work on this particular tree or whether it is better to look for another.

The pygmy woodpecker, one of the smallest representatives of forest carpenters, lives well in the bamboo forests of the Himalayas and Indochina. The bamboo trunk is hollow inside and divided into sections by partitions-internodes. It is enough for the bird to hollow out the wall of the trunk 10-20 centimeters above the internode - and it has a completely ready-made nesting chamber at its disposal.

The red-headed woodpecker, which lives in the same region, does not build a hollow at all, but hatches its chicks inside the massive and certainly residential nests of large wood ants, nicknamed “fire ants” for their lively character and readiness to immediately and for any reason use their powerful jaws and poisonous sting.

The building material for ants is a unique and quite durable “cardboard” made from wood fibers thoroughly chewed and mixed with saliva. Woodpeckers make a hole about 5 centimeters in diameter in the shell of an ant's nest and lay their eggs right among the insects' brood chambers. The secret of the loyalty of ants, whose incredible aggressiveness is known to all inhabitants of the jungle, in relation to woodpeckers has not yet been solved, especially since the feathered lodgers are not distinguished by their modest disposition and regularly eat ant pupae, without even interrupting their incubation.

Common kingfisher burrows

When it comes to digging holes, kingfishers are great masters. They dig with their beaks, and scoop out the earth from the tunnel with their paws, moving back towards the entrance, so deftly that clay and sand fly out of the hole like a fountain. When choosing a more convenient place, many birds lay several holes at the same time, often at a decent distance from each other. In the morning, the kingfisher works on one cliff, in the afternoon it flies to another, and in the evening, you see, clay is already falling from the third.

Digging a hole requires concentrated effort and takes a lot of strength. But the kingfisher couple works with great enthusiasm, and the spouses not only do not shirk their work, but strive to make as significant a contribution to the construction as possible and wait with great impatience for their turn.

The finished hole is a narrow tunnel ranging from thirty centimeters to three meters in length, which runs horizontally or with a slight slope. The hole's entrance always faces the river, and in its depths there is a round nesting chamber the size of an apple. This is the nursery, in which up to five chicks can develop freely.

Among birds there are many species that do not bother themselves with carpentry or excavation work, but willingly live in ready-made hollows and burrows. Residents of each type have their own requirements for the premises. For example, great tits occupy the darkest and deepest hollows and do not tolerate crevices in artificial nesting boxes. On the contrary, pied flycatchers, which are also committed to nesting in hollows, do not like darkness, which is why the peculiar effect of “aging nests” has become known in the practice of attracting birds. Its essence is that flycatchers most readily occupy recently hung nest boxes with light-colored walls from the inside, but almost never populate nests that have been hanging for many years, the walls of which have become dark gray over time. But it is enough to whitewash the inside of these nesting places, they again become attractive.