Living with Birds Spare a thought for parents Tweetapedia

Spare a thought for the parents by nick baker

It happens surprisingly quickly. One moment everything is grey, damp, and dormant. Then suddenly you're seeing the verdant thrust of bulbs, bulging leaf buds, and dangling dusty catkins. We go around again.

Accompanying this sweet spot in the calendar are the pronounced activities of our garden birds. Those that are here are the survivors.

Against all odds, they've managed to dodge the various bullets the winter season throws at them. Those that stayed had to balance their daily energy bills, find food when there wasn't much, and avoid starving or freezing to death when conditions were inclement - all on top of the everyday stresses of staying free of disease and avoiding the attention of predators.

Those who migrated south did so to prevent the famine but at the cost of the perils of long-distance travel, which are many. The lottery of extreme weather, winds, and storms is always a risk in this ever-changing world. As is predation, both human and wild.

Whichever way they did it, the birds you now have in your garden are the survivors. They're the winners of winter. But they don't get a break. As soon as the days start to lengthen, they begin the tireless task of reproduction. Being a parent with feathers is challenging before even a twig has been crossed or an egg is laid.

Making a claim

First, males must stake their claim on an invisible three-dimensional portion of space that we call “territory”. They proclaim this primarily by song. Just this act of singing is hard work. It is mainly the males that do this, which comes with all sorts of challenges. What we perceive as music has purpose over pleasure for the bird.

Just put yourself up there. In the open, on your perch, singing makes you more vulnerable. The mere act of broadcasting your claim to other males and attracting passing females puts you at risk. A singing bird catches the eye and the ear of the neighbourhood cat or sparrowhawk.

Then there is the energetics of singing. Research with captive singing birds suggests that while there isn't much of an increase in metabolism, there is some. Depending on bird species, it can be anywhere from 1-9%. And birds that engage in display flights accompanying their song, such as skylarks and pipits, will run up an even higher metabolic cost.

The presence of us humans can also influence how much energy a singing bird expends. Birds in built-up and urban areas must compete with the noise of our machines. In such situations, it has been seen that songbirds will either raise the pitch of their song or sing louder to be heard. The latter comes with a bigger bill (no pun intended).

Building a home

Next up is a nest. Finding a suitable site requires house hunting. Then, for most species, collecting suitable material is quite a task, even for those birds like pigeons and doves that make the most basic of structures. Have you ever counted the number of sticks in a wood pigeon nest? I have - 109. That needed 218 trips backwards and forwards, with each twig carefully selected and then carried to the nest, where the mate must approve it. Then it is carefully positioned. It might look feeble, but such a nest can be tossed about in the wind; I've had an empty one on a single branch and been able to turn it upside down and bounce it about without any ill effects. You try building a structure with the same physical integrity - it's not ‘Pick-a-Sticks’.

All this costs energy and effort. Now spare some thought for those birds that make even more complex nests, like the often-quoted 1,500 feathers in a long-tailed tit nest and over a thousand beaks-full of mud in a house martin nest! Here's something to do on a long winter night: collect an old nest, systematically pull it apart, and count the components… you'll be amazed! Some birds, such as the male wren, build more than one nest before they've even met a female…up to 12, according to some sources! All this before even got down to the business of procreating!

No rest for parents

The first eggs are laid. This is a massive investment by the pair, particularly the female. As we all know, a lot of stuff is contained in an egg beside the developing embryo. For some smaller species, such as the goldcrest, each egg weighs nearly 20% of the body weight of the bird that laid it. And think of all that calcium that makes up the eggshell? There is more calcium in a house sparrow or blue tit egg clutch than in the parent bird! You can understand why birds need to eat so much food to make babies.

Once the chicks arrive, nest-bound and entirely reliant on their parents, they must be fed. Watch the comings and goings of birds to a nest box. You'll notice that while the chicks are still small and do not require much food, visits by food-baring parent birds are occasional. After a couple of weeks you really begin to feel for them. Great tits, one of the most studied of our garden birds, will bring food 15 to 18 times an hour! We can only guess how far they fly to collect these caterpillars and aphids and how much energy is required to seek them out. On top of this, they have to feed and look after themselves, too.

Then spare a thought for blackbirds and thrushes. These birds will repeat the process at least twice, maybe three times, in one season. Adult birds are often seen feeding fledged offspring from an earlier nest while still supplying a partner or young chicks in another!

No wonder, come the end of the breeding season, every adult bird you see looks run-ragged with faded, missing, and tatty feathers. Only after the last of the fledglings become independent will most of our garden birds go through their post-breeding moult. They become quieter, secretive, and sulkier as they seek food to fuel their recovery and feather re-fit - in time to start the whole process all over again.

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