A Nest to Call Your Own

Title: A Nest to Call Your Own
Description: Use your design and thinking skills to engineer your very own bird’s nest.
Season: All year
Length of Activity: 45 minutes
Age: Kindergarten-adult
Button: Start the Activity

A Nest to Call Your Own

Have you ever seen a bird’s nest up close?

Unlike the beds you and I lay our heads on each night, bird nests are woven together using only the things birds can find around them.

From mud and pine needles to sticks and grass, wool and feathers, and even yarn and string, every bird species has its own unique way of building a bed to keep their eggs warm and their babies safe.

Before we begin our project, let’s take a look at a few different kinds of nests from Pacific Northwestern birds.

What do you notice about the nests? How are they different? What materials do they seem to be made out of? What might that tell you about the birds and where they tend to build their nests?

Now, imagine that you are a bird. What will your nest look like?

Supplies and Tools needed:
Whatever you can find outside your door! Some ideas are: mud, sticks, twigs, pine needles, pebbles, grass, leaves, feathers and even yarn and thread!

Getting started

Step 1: Take a walk outside your door.

Step 2: Using your keen observational skills to gather anything you’d like to use as materials to build your nest. Be careful not to take things from a public area where it is not permitted and only take what you need.

Step 3: Once you’ve got your supplies gathered, sit somewhere outside, weather permitting, and begin looking for ways to fold, weave, and twist your contents together in order to create a nest.

Step 4: Challenge yourself to use only your index finger and thumb, mimicking a bird’s beak.

Step 5: Remember, this is not about having the “perfect” nest, it is about getting creative and thinking about different ways you might hold it all together by only using things in nature.

Taking it Deeper
Discuss where birds construct their nests and why most of them are high up in trees. How might their position and placement impact the way the nests are built?
Think about what kind of bird might like to use the nest you just built. Where would you need to place it in order to test your theory?

Further Reading
Here is a lovely read-aloud story about different kinds of nests and the birds that build them.

Further Watching

Watch this fun, short video about 7 impressive nests, or, if you prefer a more artistic approach, photographer Sharon Beal has captured 25 breathtaking images of different nests from around the world.