Edible bird's nest

“ In the fall, winter and spring, their food consists largely of acorns, chestnuts, berries, seeds, grain, insects, lizards, etc., but during the summer months they destroy and devour a great many eggs and young of the smaller birds, their taste for which, being so great that they are known to watch a nest until the full complement of eggs is laid before making their theft. ”

“ During the nest-building and incubation the male bird keeps so aggressively on the defensive that he often betrays to a hitherto unsuspecting intruder the location of his home. After the young birds have to be fed he is most diligent in collecting food, that consists not alone of the sweet juices of flowers, as is popularly supposed, but also of aphides and plant-lice that his proboscis-like tongue licks off the garden foliage literally like a streak of lightning. ”

“ The bird, in fact, is not at all fastidious about its food, and will eat fish, frogs, toads, or water-voles with perfect impartiality. It has even been known to devour young waterhens, swimming out to their nest, and snatching up the unsuspecting brood. ”

“ Eats a little fruit, chiefly-wild berries, and is a hard-working member of the guilds of Tree Trappers and Ground Gleaners, as he eats not only grubs, but ants, beetles, bugs, caterpillars, and spiders. He is also a Seed Sower, though in being so he and his brothers, without intentional mischief, scatter the seeds from the watery white berries of the poison ivy. He always digs for himself a nest in some partly decayed tree, and never takes long journeys, but moves about only in search of food. ”

“ In spite of the popular saying, it does not seem probable that all young birds act in this way, and many nests are so constructed that it would hardly be possible for them to do so. In most cases everything necessary for sanitation or convenience could be effected afterwards by the parent birds, but this would not be the case with ravens and cormorants, or with other such carnivorous or fish-eating species. Perhaps, therefore, the power which I speak of may stand in joint relation to the diet and habits of the bird, and the kind of nest which it builds. ”

“ When we see it in the fields it is usually intent upon catching field-mice, grubs, and worms, with which it often varies its fish diet. It is, however, the worst nest robber we have; it probably destroys ten times as many eggs and young birds as its larger cousin. ”

“ The sexes are similar.
These birds love moist forests, and sometimes form flocks of three hundred individuals; they are so sociable and easily tamed that the natives use them to protect poultry. They perch, but seldom fly, and run swiftly with a peculiar gait, while they swim on an emergency. The deep-toned ventriloquistic, but not strictly trumpeting, cry is uttered with widely opened beak; the food consists of fruit, corn, and insects. The nest, said to be at the foot of a tree, contains creamy- or greyish-white eggs, like those of a Bantam. ”

“ Their flesh is tolerable food, when they are young, on which account many of them are shot. The skin of their body is usually much covered with the mealy substances detached from the roots of the feathers. The head especially is infested by numerous minute insects, all of which shift from the skin to the surface of the plumage, immediately after the bird's death. Their nest, or the place in which they deposit their eggs, is simply the bottom of such cavities in trees as those to which they usually retire at night. Many females deposit their eggs together. ”

“ The food consists of worms, molluscs, insects and their larvae, green herbage, tubers, roots of aquatic plants and seeds; Porphyrio and Tribonyx cause serious damage to potato-, rice-, and corn-crops: while the former bird is said to have a curious habit of holding the larger edibles in its claws and nibbling them like a Parrot. Some of the stronger species occasionally prey on mice, lizards, young birds, and eggs. The nest may be a large mass of aquatic plants or dry flags, as in the Coots, or a similar but smaller structure, as in the Gallinules ”

“ They were very industriously engaged in quest of insects, and were by no means shy, but kept always in the low bushes in the skirts of the woods. On one occasion the male bird was so solicitous in regard to the safety of the nest as to attract him to the place where, suspended from a low bush, about four feet from the ground, hung their curious home. It was formed like a long purse, with a round hole for entrance near the top, and made of moss, down, lint of plants, and lined with feathers. The eggs were six in number, pure white, and already far gone toward hatching. ”

“ They may either be tamed when old, or reared from the nest, and are not difficult to be caught when young with a little bird-lime at the end of a fishing-rod, as may several other species of this interesting group.
As the present species feeds entirely upon insects when wild, the greater part of which it catches on the wing, it will be useless to give it any sort of fruit or berry; but bread and milk, bruised hemp-seed and bread, with bits of fresh lean meat cut very small and mixed up in it, will be its general food. ”

“ When the time for domestic cares arrives the bird lays a single white egg on the branch which has served as its perch, or at the junction of a limb and the tree-trunk, without making any sort of a nest. Doubtless many eggs roll off this precarious location and are broken. It feeds upon beetles and insects which are caught on the wing, and some observers say that it also catches small birds ”

“ They sometimes fall from the nest and are, of course, helpless so far as feeding themselves is concerned. They will take sweetened water from a spoon, but should not be expected to thrive on this diet alone. Their natural food while growing, and probably afterward, too, is largely insects. A supply of these should be given the young birds. They become very tame and perch on the hand and on the flowers in vases. They will visit your best hat, too, if it has flowers on it, and will even try to collect nectar from the flowers on wall-paper or curtains. ”

“ It is when the water rises that the birds rise to the occasion, and get busy with nest building. Sedges, sticks, water plants with clinging soil, anything movable, is seized and forced under the threatened eggs. Indeed, so apprehensive is the bird of the growing necessity, that as often as she leaves the nest she will seize loose material and fling it over her shoulder for future use. The eggs themselves, protectively colored in bister and black, are mauled about and soiled in the mud ”

“ In the house its fierce and impetuous character makes it necessary to keep it in close confinement.
Food.—In its wild state it constantly seeks the insects which live under the bark and in the wood of trees; it also eats ants, and in winter will even take bees from the hive.
In the house it is fed on nuts, ants’ eggs, and meat.
Breeding.—The female lays three or four perfectly white eggs in the hole of a tree; if the young are to be tamed they must be taken from the nest when only half fledged; it is impossible to tame adults or old ones; we cannot even make them eat. ”

“ Briefly stated, more than half of the meadowlark’s food consists of harmful insects; its vegetable food is composed either of noxious weeds or waste grain, and the remainder is made up of useful beetles or neutral insects and spiders. A strong point in the bird’s favor is that, although naturally an insect eater, it is able to subsist on vegetable food, and consequently is not forced to migrate in cold weather farther than is necessary to find ground free from snow. ”

“ The food of birds is in general very mixed, but at one season of the year, when they are breeding, they are most industrious destroyers of insects; but it is just at this time that they are kept from the crops, exactly when insects are working the most mischief: hence, then, as the exigencies of a small growing family become more and more pressing, birds are driven to feed their young upon seeds, fruits, buds, and other vegetable matters, as unsuitable to build up the constitution of the young bird as bread diet for an infant. ”

“ This is formed by the bird in its clumsy effort to walk, a feat which it only performs on such occasions. The nest itself is bulky, and is formed of the vegetable substances found in the immediate vicinity, such as grasses and other herbaceous plants. It contains two, and sometimes three, eggs. The young are able to swim and dive very soon after they are hatched, and are fed for about a fortnight by their parents, at the expiration of which time they have to hunt for themselves. ”

“ Food: Hairy woodpeckers prefer to feed on insects on dead and diseased trees (Bent 1939) . Approximately 80 percent of the diet is animal matter; adult and larval beetles, ants, and caterpillars are the most frequently eaten items. The primarily insect diet is supplemented with fruit, corn, acorns, hazelnuts, and many other species (Beal 1911, Bent 1939) . The males forage in trees away from the nest for large insects (usually borers) located deep in the wood. Females forage close to the nest on the surface of trees, shrubs, or on the ground for small prey (Kilham 1968a) . ”

“ Its food is chiefly insects in various stages and of different kinds.
It builds its nest on the ground among the grass of the meadow, in fissures in rocks or decayed buildings, among the roots of trees, on the banks of streams, in piles of wood and fagots, or under the arch of a bridge. The nests are somewhat coarsely constructed of interwoven dry bent stems of plants and reeds, with a finer lining of the same. The eggs, six in number, are of a bluish-white ground thickly sprinkled with fine dottings, which are most usually of a blackish-brown color, sometimes ashy-gray or reddish-brown. ”

“ Accordingly, the Biological Survey has conducted for some years past a systematic investigation of the food of those species which are most common about the farm and garden.
Within certain limits birds eat the kind of food that is most accessible, especially when their natural food is scarce or wanting. Thus they sometimes injure the crops of the farmer who has unintentionally destroyed their natural food in his improvement of swamp or pasture. ”

“ The ash-throated flycatcher is not particularly specific in tree selection as long as it has a cavity. Woodpecker holes, exposed pipes, and nest boxes have been used. Mesquite, ash, oak, sycamore, juniper, and cottonwood are common nest trees (Bent 1942) .
Food: The diet of this species consists mainly of animal material. Beetles, bees, wasps, bugs, flies, caterpillars, moths, grasshoppers, spiders, etc., make up about 92 percent of the diet. ”

“ Though a lover of fruit, he does more good than injury. Insects are his natural food, and form at least two thirds of his subsistence. He devours the destructive insects that penetrate the bark and body of a tree to deposit their eggs and larvae.
About the middle of May, he begins to construct his nest, which is formed in the body of large limbs of trees, taking in no material but smoothing it within to the proper shape and size. The female lays six eggs, of a pure white. ”

“ Thus, as a rule, insectivorous birds eat the insects that are most easily obtained, provided they do not have some peculiarly disagreeable property. It is not probable that a bird habitually passes by one kind of insect to look for another which is more appetizing, and there seems little evidence in support of the theory that tire selection of food is restricted to any particular species of insect, for it is evident that a bird eats those which by its own method of seeking are most easily obtained. Thus, a ground-feeding bird eats those it finds among the dead leaves and grass ”

“ It is the embodiment of restlessness, and, by dint of sheer impudence, attracts attention even from the hunter. He adds that it seemed fond of frequenting the haunts of man, and is always plentiful near Indian lodges or white men’s shanties. It is by no means epicurean in taste, but readily devours anything, whether seeds or salmon, grasshoppers or venison. Its nest he found artfully concealed amidst the thick foliage of a young pine-tree. It was composed of moss, small twigs, lichens, and fir fronds, and lined with deer’s hair. The average number of eggs laid appears to be seven. ”

“ The meadowsweet and honeysuckle flowers and the wild carrot seeds give out sweet scents, but not so strong as not to be drowned, when the wind blows, by a thousand lesser scents from field and wood and farmyard.
Wood pigeons coo in the high-shaded storeys of the beeches and in the wet willow copses where bushes and herbage have grown so dense that hardly a bird’s-nester or a lover would care to penetrate them. In the dark wood alleys, all day long, hang insects whose wings seem to be still in their swiftness, like golden lamps. ”

“ The bird has been accused of eating the buds of fruit and shade trees, especially elms, and while he is at times guilty, he is not condemned by those who know his food-habits best, but commended for his fondness for weed seeds, especially ragweed, and for destroying plant-lice, cankerworms, cutworms, and ground beetles. ”

“ In spite of these characteristics they are very quiet during the nesting season and the female is very devoted to her nest and will almost allow herself to be touched before flying from her eggs. Their nests are bulky and usually placed in out-of-the-way places, in low, bushy, cone-bearing trees. They seemingly will eat anything of a nutritious nature. Flying insects, larvae, beetles, flies, spiders, eggs, and even small birds, seem to be palatable to their tastes. ”