By: Mallory Miles
There are plenty of reasons to look forward to spring in West Virginia: apple blossoms, waterfalls rich with snowmelt, baby lambs. If you pay close attention to the trees and bushes around you, you might find another reason to love spring hidden in plain sight. Bird nests!
Many of West Virginia’s birds, both residents and migrants, choose their mates, build their nests, and raise their young during the spring. You can watch the whole drama unfold as the days warm up and the flowers open. You just have to know what to look for!
To get you started, we’ve prepared a list of eight birds who nest in West Virginia around this time of year. Each nest is special in its own way, so this spring, try to see as many of them as possible!
A barn swallow rests on a stretch of barb wire, making full use of the resources on a local farm. Image courtesy of Juan Pablo Fuentes at AdobeStock.
Barn Swallow:
The West Virginia countryside is known for its picturesque barns, but these barns are appreciated by more than just photographers and tourists. For the barn swallow, a drafty old barn looks like home sweet home!
As winter loosens its grip on the pastures, look out for pairs of barn swallows collecting mud from creek banks and rain puddles. Barn swallows mix mud with grass to create a sort of cement and build up a cement cup nest, one beakful at a time. Nests are generally attached to the eaves of barns or under bridges. Swallows can be social, so where you find one nest, you’ll likely find more!
A red-tailed hawk shows off its impressive wingspan and characteristic tawny tail feathers. Image courtesy of Skyler Ewing at Pexels.
Red-Tailed Hawk:
With a wingspan of up to 55 inches, the red-tailed hawk is one of the largest and most recognizable birds of prey in West Virginia. It’s also fairly common, so your odds of spotting a red-tailed hawk in the wild are good!
Before settling down to construct a nest together, red-tailed hawks test potential mates with elaborate courtship displays. On a warm spring day, you may see a pair of hawks shrieking to each other, circling the sky together, or even locking talons and diving towards the ground. If the attraction holds, the hawks will construct a bulky nest (up to three feet tall) out of large sticks and brush. The nest will be located high in a tree, often the tallest tree in the area, so the hawks have a bird’s-eye-view of their territory. If you’re lucky enough to find a red-tailed hawk nest, you can expect years of entertainment from it, as hawks will often return to the same nesting site each year.
A Carolina Wren pauses on a tree branch. Image courtesy of Wirestock.
Carolina Wren:
If the red-tailed hawk’s nest seems out of reach, you’ll be happy to learn that West Virginia has one bold little bird who will nest pretty much anywhere!
The Carolina wren is a small, brown bird easily recognized by his white eyebrow and checkered tail. Beginning in mid-March, monogamous pairs of wrens (that’s right, these birds choose a mate for life) waste no time in getting to work on their nests. Nests are loosely woven of grass, leaves, and straw and lined with softer materials like feathers and moss. Excitingly, these nests are often placed in locations you can stumble upon them: in mailboxes, flowerpots, dog food bowls, or even boots. Be careful not to startle the parents, and you may be able to watch the clutch of brown-speckled eggs grow into fledgling birds!
A male Eastern Bluebird size each other up. Image courtesy of Hal at AdobeStock.
Eastern Bluebird:
A bit choosier about their lodgings than the Carolina wren, the Eastern bluebird is nevertheless one of the most beloved nesters among bird watchers.
You’ll know that breeding season is approaching for the Eastern bluebird when you begin to notice the males’ dull winter plumage being replaced by its trademark bright blue plumage, usually around mid-February. Be ready with your birdhouse as soon as you see this plumage change! Bluebirds won’t nest in the open, like some other birds. Instead, they weave nests of pine needles or straw in sheltered cavities, usually ten to twenty feet off the ground. If placed appropriately, birdhouses with the correct-sized entry hole can be very attractive options for bluebirds! If you’re lucky enough to house a bluebird couple for a season, make sure to get a peek at the eggs, without disturbing the parents. The blue pigment in the eggshells is as remarkable as the blue feathers on adult birds!
A downy woodpecker displays the characteristic red patch on the back of its head. Image courtesy of BGSmith at AdobeStock.
Downy Woodpecker:
The original cavity nesters, downy woodpeckers (and their tribe of woodpecker cousins) are often responsible for creating the cavities that other birds, like bluebirds, later occupy.
Although downy woodpeckers are less likely to set up shop in a birdhouse, they are frequently seen at birdfeeders and may choose to nest near your home if you provide a continuous, yummy food source. Downy woodpeckers will also appreciate it if you hold off on cutting down that dead tree in your back yard; dead wood is easier for them to hollow out and more suitable for nesting than live wood. Provide the appropriate habitat for a woodpecker, and you may be rewarded by a little face peeking out of a nest high above your house.
A ruby-throated hummingbird visits a feeder for a sweet treat. Image courtesy of Christine Glade at AdobeStock.
Ruby-Throated Hummingbird:
As the only hummingbird species to breed in the Eastern United States, the ruby-throated hummingbird is a uniquely charming nester in West Virginia.
Beginning in March, ruby-throated hummingbird males can be spotted performing flashy courtship displays for perched females. These displays include diving maneuvers and whirring and buzzing noises produced by the wings. If the female is impressed, she will mate with the male and construct a tiny nest, no larger than a quarter, on top of a horizontal branch stretching out from a tree. Amazingly, the hummingbird uses spiderwebs to ensure that her nest sticks to the branch and lichen and moss to camouflage the outside of the nest. Not surprisingly, these nests can be hard to detect, but if you closely track the movements of your local hummingbirds, you may be rewarded with the magical experience of finding a hummingbird nest!
A hooded warbler fans out its white tail feathers in an eye-catching display. Image courtesy of Paul Hurtado at Flickr.
Hooded Warbler:
Gotten your fill of ruby-throated hummingbirds? It may be time to seek out an equally exotic but more elusive bird: the hooded warbler.
Like hummingbirds, hooded warblers migrate up from the tropics in the spring to breed in the eastern United States. Despite their bright colors, they are shy forest birds and are less likely to appear at feeders than your typical sparrow or chickadee. You can increase your odds of spotting a warbler by going out for hike in one of West Virginia’s many protected forests. Because hooded warblers nest in shrubs relatively close to the ground, their nests are accessible to the trained eye!
A brown-headed cowbird scouts out its next victim. Image courtesy of Mohan Nannapaneni at Pexels.
Brown-Headed Cowbird:
This is one bird you don’t want to catch nesting in your backyard, especially if you have uncommon birds, like the hooded warbler, around!
Brown-headed cowbirds are parasitic nesters. Rather than building their own nests, they sneak into the nests of other birds and deposit eggs there, for other birds to raise. Unfortunately, brown-headed cowbird chicks can be unfriendly to their foster siblings. They are often larger than the chicks they share their nest with and demand more food from the foster parent, sometimes leading to the exhaustion of the parent or the starvation of other chicks in the nest. Some birds have learned to recognize cowbird eggs among their clutch and will abandon entire nests rather than undergoing the challenges of raising a cowbird. For this reason, cowbirds have pushed many smaller, less common birds towards an endangered status.
