{"id":12074,"date":"2024-04-18T14:44:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T18:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/?p=12074"},"modified":"2024-05-10T13:16:55","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T17:16:55","slug":"dryer-lint-is-not-nesting-material","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/dryer-lint-is-not-nesting-material\/","title":{"rendered":"Dryer Lint is NOT Nesting Material"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Very Important!<\/strong>\u00a0Please be careful what you offer your backyard birds for their nests. Don&#8217;t offer any materials that have been chemically treated in any way. If in doubt, don&#8217;t leave it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Here&#8217;s a list of DON&#8217;Ts from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"checklist wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Dryer lint<\/strong>. There are many reasons dryer lint is not good for nesting birds and their babies. From the start, it&#8217;s not really helping your birds build a better nest. Almost the opposite, actually! <strong>After being rained on and drying out, dryer lint just&#8230;crumbles<\/strong>. Additionally, if you use softener sheets in your dryer, that means nesting parents are placing all their eggs in one crumbly\u2014structurally vulnerable\u2014nest <em>with added chemicals<\/em>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Dog or cat fur<\/strong>. Especially&nbsp;if your pets take flea medication or are bathed using flea shampoo.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Hair.<\/strong> Including your own (shampooed and conditioned) hair! <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Plastic strips<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Tinsel<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Cellophane<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Aluminum foil<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">So, what nesting material is best to offer?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">DOs &#8211; <strong>Cornell Lab recommends the following, in any combination:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"checklist wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Dead twigs<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Dead leaves<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Dry grass<\/strong> (make sure the grass hadn\u2019t been treated with pesticides)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Feathers<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Plant fluff or down<\/strong> (e.g. cattail fluff, cottonwood down)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Moss<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Bark strips<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Pine needles<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>More about natural nesting material from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\" title=\"\">Cornell Lab&#8217;s Allaboutbirds.org<\/a>:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Fallen leaves and twigs left unraked make excellent nest materials for many birds. Providing nooks in your backyard where this untidy debris can collect provides a variety of material for the birds to check out when they are building nests. They may even pick through your compost pile looking for suitable nest material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For more info<strong>, including how\/where to offer nesting material to your birds<\/strong>, refer to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/providing-nest-material-for-birds-dos-donts\/\" title=\"\">The Cornell Lab&#8217;s post on nesting material here <\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Want to make your backyard a nesting paradise for them while making it super-easy for yourself? &nbsp;<strong>Offer our natural nesting material<\/strong>&nbsp;as an extra enticement. Some of our favorites:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/portfolio-items\/birdie-bell-nesting-material\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Birdie Bell<\/strong>&nbsp;with nesting material<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/portfolio-items\/wild-bird-nesting-material-wreath\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Wild Bird Nesting Material Wreath<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/portfolio-items\/hummingbird-nesting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Hummingbird Nesting Helper<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Very Important!\u00a0Please be careful what you offer your backyard birds for their nests. Don&#8217;t offer any materials that have been chemically treated in any way. If in doubt, don&#8217;t leave it out. Here&#8217;s a list of DON&#8217;Ts from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology: So, what nesting material is best to offer? DOs &#8211; Cornell Lab [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":12075,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wild-bird-houses","category-wildlife-habitats"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12074"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12095,"href":"https:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12074\/revisions\/12095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}