What do you make of this behavior? (1 Viewer)

Hello all,

I am new to the forum (first post!) but have become quite interested in the behavior of some birds in my backyard.

About a couple of months ago, a bird built a nest outside my bathroom window; laid some eggs and fed/cared for the babies to my families delight over the course of a few weeks. One day, however, the nest was toppled from it's perch (in the eaves) and the birds had gone. I wasn't worried as I knew the babies had gotten much larger and were probably ready to venture out on their own.

A few days later, the same bird began rebuilding the nest in the same spot! This is where I began to be puzzled...I didn't know birds really build nests unless to lay eggs. And do they do this more than once a year? And it seemed like one of the babies was shadowing her throughout the whole re-building process. (There were three babies and I only saw one with her after the day the nest fell down so not sure what happened there)

Anyway, same process: she built the nest, began spending a lot of time sitting in it and then yesterday, began animatedly flying back and forth between the yard and the nest feeding some new hatchlings. They were brand new and barely visible moving around in the nest yesterday but I did see them. This time, she seemed to have a mate helping her (or maybe it was one of the original babies?).

Ok, so now this morning, I open the shade to greet my new family of birds and the nest is knocked down and there is absolutely no sign of them! Usually, I see them flying around, sitting in the tree, etc. I know this birds call and now, nothing!

What do you think happened? I thought about maybe an animal making it's way to the nest last night but can't see how an animal could possibly get to it (unless they has suction cups on their feet!) Plus we didn't hear any disturbances during the night and yesterday my husband merely tried to clean the windows nearby and got chased away...

I'm just perplexed...any ideas? thanks!

Hello there and a warm welcome to you from those of us on staff here at BirdForum :t:

A couple of thoughts here. First, was it a Mourning Dove by any chance? They are notorious for flimsy nests. Have you had any wind/storms recently. Any branches within 8 feet of the nest? Squirrels can jump 8 feet and are big nest invaders.

Hi KCFoggin,

Just googled Mourning Dove and no, I don't think so...much smaller than that. Like a sparrow, I think. I have a few pictures I took, maybe I'll post them when I figure out how to do that.

Anyway, I was wondering about squirrels because we have a lot around here and that's the only creature I could see being able to get to the spot where the nest was.

BTW--forgot to mention, when i saw the nest had fallen, I picked it up and tucked it back into the eaves where it was...bad idea? Just thought maybe they'd come back...although no sign of the babies.

PS...thank you for the warm welcome!!

Welcome to Birdforum Itdesign. :t:

KC will be able to give you better advice than I can, because she comes from the same area as you do - but some photos of the birds would be great. Different species will behave in different ways, so knowing the kind of bird would help.

To post a photo in your posts here (I'm assuming you already have them on your desktop or somewhere similar) just click on "manage attachments" - it's down below the reply box, just scroll down and you'll find it. Then click "browse" and the numbers/names of your photos will appear. Click the one(s) you want to post and it will be on your post when you submit it. The photos will need to be in one of the formats listed alongside the "manage attachments" button, and you need to downsize to less than 200kb, otherwise they won't load.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for your replies...I am posting two pictures of the bird (one of her feeding her chicks and one of her hanging out in a tree near the nest).

Hi, not really sure what bird you have there, looks like some kind of fly catcher.
A lot of small song birds will nest twice and even three times in a season, particularly if the first atempt fails. Why your nest is falling down right at the end of the nesting stage could be one of three things.
1, babies ready to fledge are restless, always streching wings ect and this could dislodge a badly placed nest. Chances are if this is the case the babies will have been fine, moving off to cover in near by trees.
2, the growing babies moving more could attract predetors, squirrels or rats
3, Weather, if its windy and badly placed could have been dislodged. Often first time breeders are not so good at picking a good location and the best places are taken by the more experienced.
Enjoyed reading about your observations, bird behavior fascinates me.
Lulie