Every summer, for the last 27 years, several kinds of adaptable and common birds nested in our neighborhood of many trees and bushes in New Holland, Pennsylvania. I estimate I can see about six acres of suburban area lawns from our house, which I call our neighborhood. At least eight kinds of birds raise young every summer close to home, while several other species have occasionally reared offspring in my home neighborhood. I can hear the songs or calls of all these birds at some time in spring and summer. The eight regulars are mourning doves, American robins, northern cardinals, gray catbirds, purple grackles, house sparrows, song sparrows, house wrens and Carolina wrens.
Only one or two pairs of each species nests in this neighborhood because each habitat has limited food and shelter. Several different kinds of birds nest here because each species occupies a slightly different niche, which reduces competition among them for space and food.
The doves build flimsy grass nests on needled boughs of our Norway spruce trees. But they often use the abandoned cradles of robins as well. Actually, they are better off hatching their two young in a brood in a robin's nursery because that bird's nest doesn't fall apart during strong wind.
Parent doves feed their young a mixture of pre-digested seeds and throat mucus. The doves commute to nearby fields or a bird feeder to ingest the seeds.
Every year one or two pairs of robins hatch babies in mud and grass nurseries in trees or shrubbery in our neighborhood. We see the adults fighting along boundary lines between territories and running and stopping on short-grass lawns in search of earthworms and other invertebrates to feed themselves and their young.
Cardinals and catbirds hatch young in twig cradles in impenetrable bushes. Males of these species sing much of the time from exposed perches, and both species are seen a lot on our lawn gathering invertebrates to feed their young.
Every spring, a small colony of purple grackles raises young in mud and grass nurseries in half-grown spruce trees that provide ample shelter to the eggs and young. Because the grackles are fairly large, one can see them shuttling food to their young, and carrying white excrement away from their nests to reduce clues to their cradles so predators are less likely to find the youngsters.
House sparrows build grass cradles in any shelter they find in buildings and other human-made objects. They shuttle invertebrates and seeds to their young in their protected nests.
A pair of song sparrows hatch babies in shrubbery in my neighborhood. I can hear the male singing from mid-February until well into summer. The parents feed invertebrates to their young.
Both house wrens and Carolina wrens raise young in our neighborhood and feed them a variety of smaller invertebrates. We often hear the songs of the males of both species. A pair of house wrens hatch offspring in one of a few wren houses we have in our yard. But the Carolinas produce young in odd places, such as brush piles, rock piles, tree cavities or in sheds. One year a pair of Carolinas hatched young in a neighbor's outdoor grill!
xAs mentioned above, several other kinds of birds hatch offspring here, but not regularly. I occasionally see a downy woodpecker or two any time of the year in my home area. And once I found a hole in a tree that a female downy went into to feed her young a variety of invertebrates. Apparently, there are enough trees here to satisfy downy woodpeckers. Because of abandoned woodpecker holes and wren boxes around the neighborhood, we always have a few Carolina chickadees in my home area. And a couple of times we have had them rearing young in wren boxes in our yard.
One year we had a pair of tufted titmice hatch youngsters in a bluebird box I erected on a back tree. Chickadees and titmice are cousins that prefer living in woodlands, but will make do with suburbs with lots of trees. Both species feed on invertebrates the year around.
Blue jays are in this neighborhood the year around, but they don't always nest in it. But some years a pair will build a cradle in a Norway spruce tree in our back yard. Once in a while, I will see a recently fledged young jay on our lawn. But one recent year, I saw a pair of blue jays courting during a warm April afternoon. The male was catching insects of some kind and feeding them to his mate. A few weeks later I accidentally saw their nest in a eight-foot-tall red juniper tree that I planted in our back yard. Later I saw them feeding their youngsters in that nest.
I think some summers a pair of chipping sparrows nest in a young arborvitae tree in a neighbor's lawn. I hear the male trilling and occasionally see them, but I never saw their nursery, though I suspected it was in an arborvitae.
One year a hen mallard hatched a brood of 12 ducklings under a bush in our yard. There is a pond a few hundred yards down the street and I imagine she walked her brood that far to get to water so her young could feed on aquatic plants and animals.
House finches, starlings and chimney swifts build nurseries on structures in our neighborhood upon occasion. The house finches usually build on top of porch lights or the supports of awnings. Starlings will build grassy cradles in any protective crevice they can squeeze in to. And swifts build twig cradles down the inside of chimneys. including one or two pairs in our neighborhood.
Swifts snap off tiny twigs from trees while they are in flight. They glue each twig to the sheer wall inside the chimney, using their saliva as glue, to make a platform on which each hen lays three to four eggs. To these birds, chimneys are more hollow, broken-off trees they traditionally raised young in. Swifts fly all day on narrow, swept-back wings to seine the sky of flying insects.
At least once, a pair of screech owls have raised four young in a tree hollow in our neighborhood. One evening early in June that year, The four young screechers were lined up on our front porch railing, waiting to be fed. They were an interesting sight until they flew away, one at a time, to more secluded perches in nearby trees.
American crows, red-tailed hawks, Cooper's hawks and great horned owls have all nested at one time or another in the tree tops of our neighborhood. These species are predatory, even the crows to some extent. Crows will raid other birds' nests to eat the eggs or young in them. They also kill fledgling robins and grackles, and baby cottontail rabbits. Red-tails prey heavily on gray squirrels, but will take most any prey they can handle. Cooper's specialize in catching birds, such as doves, grackles, starlings and other kinds.
Any suburban neighborhood in the eastern United States has a variety of interesting nesting birds in it. The reader only has to get out and look for them, but please don't disturb those nesting birds!
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