Bird Watching: Daily Piccies Vol. 462, 2 by Chillybean

Chillybean wrote:
I think I mentioned some time ago I use my own hair. I use natural shampoos and only rarely aloe gel to keep it in place. When I clean my hairbrush, I keep it for the birds and cut it into chunks to put in the wire cage.

When I learned orioles used horse hair for their nests, it was an experiment I tried one year to see if it would keep them here for nesting... and it worked. There\'s people with horses down the road a ways and my hair was the closest substitute I could think of and natural that I would think breaks down over time.

I found that female Orioles can be just as territorial as males, so I put out the cages in different areas to avoid stress.

Strangely last year they didn\'t take to my hair, but used baler twine. I hope the young were ok since that likely is plastic and could strangle them. Rarely do we find the nests during nesting season, but it is always like a treasure hunt after the leaves fall off the trees.

The second picture is from a couple of years ago. After we saw this, we hung a cage from the swing set. Oh, she struggled so much.