Carolyn with our education owl, Hank (photo by Carolyn Byers)
In this episode we answer questions like "Do birds ever nest in the winter?" and "How do birds protect their nests?" and learn about cavity nesters with our nest expert Carolyn Byers the Director of Education at Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance.
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Transcription
Hey, and welcome to Questions Asked by Curious Kids or QuACK, a podcast made by Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance. This is a podcast where we gather questions about nature from kids to be answered with a local expert. My name is Mickenzee. I'm an educator, and I'll be the host for this series.This episode, I'll be interviewing Carolyn Byers, our education director, and she's going to be talking all about nests. All right, let's jump in with Carolyn.
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Mickenzee: Carolyn, can you tell us a little bit about what you do?
Carolyn: Yeah, totally. so my main job is just teaching people about nature, and I spend most of my time working with kids, usually school kids, in our Madison Metro School District. So we travel around and teach weekly in classrooms and I think we're in about 15 right now. I forget the real number, but it's around 15. Yeah, it's a lot. and so we visit kids weekly throughout the school year and throughout the summer. We work with community centers during the summer and so it's really fun watching kids grow and see what they notice and how they change and how their relationship with nature shifts over the year.
Mickenzee: That's great. Today we're answering some big questions about nests. Could you tell us about how you became a nest expert?
Carolyn: Ooh, yes. Nests are some of my favorite things, especially eggs. But when I was working on my master's degree, I was studying grassland birds and the nests that they make and how their nests kind of unfold throughout the summer. So I got to spend two summers looking for nests in grassland, which are, you know, big fields with grasses and flowers and not many trees, hopefully none. but we were looking for nests. We were finding nests, and I got to put video cameras on some of our nests, and we were able to see if the nests got eaten and who ate them. And if the nests ended up surviving and fledging, which means the chicks got to leave the nest. And so I have all this great video footage of, you know, badgers eating eggs and snakes eating chicks and chicks fledging and leaving and flying and parents feeding them. So I really, really love nests.
Mickenzee: That sounds like the best summer.
Carolyn: It was a lot of work. But it was fun.
Mickenzee: Yeah. So all of our questions today were submitted by the third graders at Lincoln Elementary School here in Madison. They have a handful of questions about nests. But before we jump in, can you tell us generally what birds use their nests for? They don't use them all year round, right?
Carolyn: Yeah. For most birds, they only use their nests when they are laying eggs, when they're incubating their eggs. So they're keeping them warm, getting them ready to hatch. And when they have chicks in the nest. So usually once a chick leaves the nest, they leave it for good. Some birds, the chicks will leave the nest and go back to the nest and leave the nest to go back to the nest just a few times, but then eventually they leave it for good. and most birds, once their chicks leave the nest, that nest is totally done. Some birds will reuse their nest, some birds will take over other bird's nests. But for the most part, once the nest is done, it's done.
Mickenzee: Cool. So for our next question is, do birds ever nest in the winter when there's snow? I can't imagine them nesting when there's snow on them.
Great Horned Owl on a snowy nest (photo by Pat Ready)
Carolyn: That is a really good question. Most birds wait until the weather is warmer to make a nest because their chicks or their eggs hatch very quickly. Maybe in two weeks, maybe in three weeks, and then their chicks are also raised very quickly, so they kind of time it for when that food is ready. Okay. And most of those birds are also feeding their chicks bugs, which are really, really tasty. If you're a bird. But there are a few birds that will start their nests when it's snowing out, because their eggs take such a long time to hatch, and then their chicks take a long time before they're ready to be independent and so those birds are also usually eating things that are available all the time. Like in Wisconsin, we don't have a lot of bugs around in the winter. That would be really hard for those little birds to try and find a bunch of bugs to feed the babies, but we've got a ton of rodents like mice and squirrels. So the birds that I'm thinking of that nest in the winter are owls. I feel like eagles might start early too, but owls are the big ones. So great horned owls. Actually, a neighbor of mine said that they saw great horned owls mating in early January. And so they're already starting. They're probably not laying their eggs quite yet, but they're very close. Yeah. So in January they'll be laying their eggs. They'll be incubating their eggs. That means they're sitting on them, keeping them warm. And those chicks are, they're going to hatch. It might still be snowy when they're hatching. Wow. So it's a big job for those parents to keep the eggs and the chicks warm when it's cold and snowy.
Mickenzee:Totally. Yeah. Okay, before I ask the nest -the next- question.
Carolyn: The nest question.
Mickenzee: Tongue twisters. Could you tell us what a cavity nester is?
Pileated Woodpecker and chicks (photo by Phil Brown)
Carolyn: Yeah, a cavity nester is a bird that nests in a cavity. And a cavity is kind of like when you think about your teeth cavities in your teeth. It's like holes, right? So a cavity in a tree is a hole in a tree. A cavity in a rock is a hole in the rock. So cavity nesters put their nests in holes. All right.
Mickenzee: So this question asker wonders: how do cavity nesters make the holes for their nest?
Carolyn: So usually cavities are either ones that kind of occur. Well a bird doesn't make it. Sometimes it could be bugs eating away at the trees. It could be the trees just decaying as they get older. But there are some very special birds that are really good at making holes in trees. I bet you can think of them.
Mickenzee: I wonder...
Carolyn: Right? So woodpeckers are really good at making holes in trees, and they make holes to nest in themselves. And they also look for food by making holes in the nests or holes in the trees. And so they use their own cavities to nest in. And other birds will also use their cavities. Sometimes they make them a little bigger, but sometimes they just move right in.
Mickenzee: Cool. All right. And our last question is: how do birds protect their nests?
Carolyn: This is a big answer, but we can do it quickly. So the biggest way that birds protect their nest is by putting it somewhere safe and hidden. So sometimes that will be hidden in a tree if they're nesting in a grassland, it's usually in a clump of grass or maybe under some dead vegetation. So they're trying to hide their nest, because the easiest way to defend it is to make sure nobody finds it. Sometimes if a predator is around, birds will just leave. It's easiest for them, the adults, to keep themselves safe so they can make a new nest, either that year or the next year. so that's not really keeping their nest safe, but it's making sure they can have more babies another time. Some birds will choose how they defend their nest depending on who the predator is. So sometimes they will attack a snake because snakes are some. Well, snakes can be fast, but they're not as fast as like a weasel. So they might attack a snake but leave if a weasel comes by. And other birds, they're pretty big and tough and strong, like eagles. Like owls. They will defend their nest using their claws, using their beak sometimes. And so they might swoop down on whatever's near their nest and either pretend, you know, pretend to hit them like, swoop really close and hopefully just scare them, or they might actually make contact. So scrape them with their claws, hit them with their feet. Sometimes they make a lot of noise. Oh, is there time for one more story?
Mickenzee: Yeah, totally.
Killdeer protecting the nest (photo by Courtney Celley/USFWS)
Carolyn: One of my favorite types of parents at the nest are the Killdeer and Killdeer are really cool. It’s not really nest defense. but they will, they'll pretend their wing is broken and they'll make a lot of noise and they'll kind of shuffle away from the nest. And it seems like they're hurt and they're luring the predator away from the nest. So they're not trying to fight the predator, but they're trying to get the predator away so that they won't find the chicks. And then when they get far enough away, the mom and mom or dad is like, oh, I'm all set. And then they fly away and I love it. They're so fun.
Mickenzee: I've seen that before. It's so fun to watch. I feel like another one other people might have come in contact with is the Red-winged Black Bird and they're defending their nests. They're really big into swooping.
Carolyn: Sounds like maybe personal experience.
Mickenzee: Yeah. Totally. All right. So to recap we learned that birds don't use their nests all the time. But some birds do nest in the winter time. We learned about cavity nesters and how birds defend their nests. How interesting. Thank you to the third graders at Lincoln Elementary for submitting your big questions. And thank you, Carolyn, for joining us and answering our big questions. It was so fun.
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If you're interested in learning more about nests or anything else nature related, please head to our website at swibirds.org and click on over to the education tab where we have our free lessons, games and activities. You can find things like our lesson that's all about nest or play games like Owl Eyes. And if you're looking to get outdoors, check out the field trip calendar under Community Education. If you have a big nature question that you would like to have answered, please have a grown up or teacher submit your question to info@swibirds.org with the title Questions for QuACK. Make sure to include your grade and school you attend so I can give you a shout out. Thanks for tuning in and I hope you join us next time on QuACK!
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Audio Editing and Transcription by Mickenzee Okon
Logo design by Carolyn Byers and Kaitlin Svabek
Music: “The Forest and the Trees” by Kevin MacLeod
