When you think of a bird building its nest, you think of twigs, moss, leaves, maybe seaweed, but if you’re a residential bird that lives on a man made lake then you’ll take whatever is at hand (or beak).
Watching a couple of Great Crested Grebes building their nest and it was amazing to see how much rubbish, literally, they were using. Various plastic bags, sweet and crisps and a various assortment of what was hard to identify was being used. I can’t imagine any of the plastics would be of any practical use as the nest material would need to be insulating but it didn’t stop them finding and using them. Where they found this man made ‘nesting material’ was also a bit of a surprise. It was at the bottom of the lake which makes you wonder just how bad the lake is as on the surface it seems fine.
I suppose though, since birds take up residence there, it must ultimately be fine still, it does seem a bit strange to see a nest made up of Walker Crisps and Haribo sweet packets.
Hello Frank,
ReplyDeleteNot nice to see, but the birds have come to terms with this environment and make the best of it. Very beautiful pictures are you succeeded
Greetings Frank
I will going back at some point to see how the nest is holding up and how 'effective' some of this nest building materials have been. But you're right other birds use man made materials in their nests
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