Bird Nesting Behaviors

Marsh Wren, building nest, Morro Bay, California

Marsh Wrens are extraordinary nest builders. The male will build up to a dozen nests. Then the female chooses one of these nests and lays her eggs in it.

Find more about the marsh wren and hundreds (thousands?) of other birds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (ornithology = study of birds).

Snowy Owl, incubating eggs, Barrow Alaska.

A lemming is a small rodent, weighing 1 to 4 ounces
and measuring 3 to 6 inches long.

The average female snowy owl weighs 60 ounces and measures 26 inches long.

The male owl hunts for the family while the owlets are small. 

Find out more about how owl hunting and feeding behaviors here.

The Snowy Owl does not leave her nest once the eggs have been laid. Her mate must hunt and feed her until the chicks hatch. A nest usually has 5 to 8 eggs, with one egg laid every two days. The eggs hatch in 32-34 days.

Then both parents are very busy, as snowy owlets will eat about 2 lemmings a day! A family of snowy owls may eat as many as 1500 lemmings before the young disperse!

Both parents feed the young, and they are fiercely protective- they will attack intruders up to 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from the nest!

---

Robin male feeding female as she sits on eggs

Robins live across the United States. Almost everyone has seen one! In this video, the male robin is feeding the female as she incubates the eggs, but unlike the snowy owl, she will also leave her nest for a few minutes to feed herself.

Learn more about  American Robins and the sounds they make at
All About Birds.

Tree Swallow, New York

A pair of Tree Swallow adults may catch up to 10,000 flying insects a day while feeding their family of five young birds.

Songbirds like these are usually ready to leave the nest in two to three weeks.

Owls and other birds of prey may stay in the nest for 8 - 10 weeks, while waterfowl, such as ducks, hardly spend any time in the nest at all, looking for food alongside their parents hours after hatching.