[birding] Re: Nests made of ash leaves - a hypothesis

Wed Mar 18 18:12:10 PDT 2009

A suggestion - 

Leaf nests make me think of Purple Martins.??Purple Martins make nests that are a bulky pile of mostly leaves and other material with a loose cup of fresh leaves at the top.

I don't know the size of the boxes? - so perhaps Martins are not a practical suggestion.? But you might look into how their nests are constructed and see if that is similar to what you found.

Sandy Pepin
N. Albany

-----Original Message-----
From: Jamie S. <woodpecker97330 at yahoo.com>
To: Michael Dossett <phainopepla at yahoo.com>; post to list midvalleybirding <list at midvalleybirding.org>; Mid-valley-nature <mid-valley-nature at googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:26 am
Subject: [birding] Re: Nests made of ash leaves - a hypothesis

(I'm forwarding this thread to the midvalley birding list as well. Previous messages are below this one.)

?

Hmmm... As Joan noted, we've never found this type of nest before at Stewart Lake (HP). So what has changed? ?Michael Dossett's note?suggesting that they are Bewick's wren nests inadvertantly gave?me an idea for what has happened:

?

-We've always had Bewick's wrens at Stewart Lake but not using the nest boxes until 2007 or 2008. (The boxes were not cleaned in 2008.)
-We had house wrens nesting yearly at Stewart Lake through 2006. Inexplicably, house wrens did not return in 2007 or 2008.?House wrens used some nest boxes some years and filled some with sticks as well.

?

Perhaps the presence of house wrens kept the Bewick's wrens from using the nest boxes? Once the house wrens no longer were present, the Bewick's wrens decided to move into 3 of the boxes. 

?

Jamie Simmons

Corvallis

--- On Wed, 3/18/09, Michael Dossett <phainopepla at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Michael Dossett <phainopepla at yahoo.com>
Subject: [mid-valley-nature:190] Re: Nests made of ash leaves
To: "Joan" <blueoaks at gmail.com>, mid-valley-nature at googlegroups.com
Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2009, 9:58 AM

My guess is that these are from Bewick's Wrens.? When I lived in Missouri, you could always know a Carolina Wren nest when you saw it because of it's leaf construction.? The closely related Bewicks often but builds nests mostly or entirely of leaves, occaisionally using sticks and moss as well.? House Wrens are in a different genus and use many many more sticks in their nests.

?

Michael

?

Michael Dossett Corvallis, Oregon www.Mdossettphoto.com phainopepla at yahoo.com

--- On Wed, 3/18/09, Joan <blueoaks at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Joan <blueoaks at gmail.com>
Subject: [mid-valley-nature:189] Nests made of ash leaves
To: "Mid-Valley Nature" <mid-valley-nature at googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2009, 9:49 AM

Neil and I and Jim Anderson recently cleaned out the nest boxes around
Stewart Lake near the HP campus. There are 10 or so nest boxes
situated around the lake and six of the boxes had some kind of nest in
them. Three of the six nests were different from any nests we've seen
in our career of cleaning these nest boxes out (the last 5 or so
years). These three nests were composed entirely of Oregon Ash leaves.
On the bottom, the leaves were decomposing, but the leaves on the top
of the nests were clearly identifiable as ash leaves and they formed
into a cup of sorts at the top. There were no other ingredients in
these nests. Any idea what kind of bird might create such nests?

--Joan Newhouse

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