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Secrets of the Nest: The Family Life of North American Birds
With its vivid color plates and detailed illustrations, Secrets of the Nest is an insightful look into the mysteries of birds' nesting habits. From the two-ton nest of an eagle to the tiny knot-like nest of a hummingbird, Dunning examines the diverse habitats and sizes of birds' nests. This is an inviting book that peeks inside a remarkable natural place and shows both the evolution of birds and the methods they use to nurture and protect their eggs.
228 pages, Paperback
First published April 18, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 13, 2021
Kinds of nests:
The Ground Nest
The Platform Nest
The Burrow
The Cavity Nest
The Cup Nest
The Pensile Nest (a tiny hammock suspended between the forks of small twigs that would not support a cup nest)
The Pendulous Nest
No Nest
THE GROUND NEST
How have birds who do ground nests survived? They often now need human protection from other humans.
Terns have managed to exist for 50 million years. They are relatives of gulls and tough fighters. They were practically annihilated for their feathers. They have been saved by the Endangered Species Act. Can we get the damn Republican Party to stop trying to destroy this Act?
Male terns swoop in the air with small silver fish gleaming in their mouths, perhaps to show how they can provide for their mates. Pair bonds gradually form. The female lands on the sand. Copulation takes place in only seconds, a brief coming together of cloacas. At the precise moment of coitus, the female tern tilts her head backward, takes the silver fish from the beak of the male, and swallows it.
Murres have ground nests on the sides of cliffs over the ocean. They are densely packed. They are considered to be the Northern Hemisphere's equivalent of the penguin, but they are members of the auk family. Before lighthouses it was considered illegal to kill murres because their noises alerted boats to shore lines.
Each pair of murres has a territory of a few square feet, yet they return each year to fiercely defend it. They lay only one egg that somehow rarely rolls off the cliff. At the top of the cliff are glaucous gulls waiting to attack. Other glaucous gulls wait at the bottom for something to fall. Eventually, the chicks have to make the jump into the ocean. Incredible bravery.
The northern fulmar nests on rock ledges. In the winter they often rest on the open ocean.
Killdeer lay their eggs on the ground. They are famous for their broken wing display. I saw a pair once in the parking lot of a Little League field.
A whip-poor-will's body provides the camouflage for its eggs on the ground.
Ducks are slowly dying out because of human beings and our land use, pollution, hunting, and so on. The prairies are no longer what they used to be.
Geese are doing a little better than ducks because they breed further north.
The Marbled Murrelet has no nest, just lays an egg on moss in an old growth tree or on bare ground among boulders. It was the last North American bird to have the location of its nest discovered. Reward were offered for the person who could figure out where they came from. A tree surgeon accidentally knocked an egg out of an old growth tree while he was 137 feet in the air.
The final ground nest bird mentioned is the California Condor. It lays a single egg on bare ground in a cave or an inaccessible cliff ledge. It drops it from a standing position and it does not break.
They were once very common until humans did their damage with poisons. There were actually 21 condors left in the wild in 1981. Captive breeding helped out. Now with climate change and more forest fires, they are in danger again.
Note well: it was the Endangered Species Act that saved them. This act is continuously attacked by the Republican party. One of the consequences of voting for them.
THE PLATFORM NEST
Egrets and herons live in great rookeries. I have seen one, and it is quite an incredible sight. I have also read stories of people destroying rookeries for a man-made pond.
In one horrible incident, the author describes a baby egret falling out of the nest and dying in the swamp below with no adult showing the slightest concern. And older chicks push aside young ones when food is scarce.
In the mid 1800s, hunters killed birds during breeding season. Millions of egrets were destroyed to provide feathers for women's hats. The ratio was four birds for each ounce of feathers. One feather auction perhaps alone cost the lives of one million birds. Finally protests and laws stopped the slaughter. And the Audubon Society was formed.
Mourning doves use camouflage, but their biggest defense is their high productivity. The eggs require 2 weeks of incubation, and the young require 2 weeks to fly. The parents may raise 2 to 5 broods per nesting season. Also pigeon milk is exceedingly rich. I never knew they produced a milk through regurgitation.
The bald eagle made a comeback with the banning of DDT.
Harris's hawk builds a nest in the crotch of a saguaro cactus. They are amazingly cooperative birds. They often join together to kill an adult jackrabbit which can feed about 5 or 6 birds.
The great horned owl nests in winter before the foliage obstructs their view of their prey. They eat virtually every mammal or bird out there.
The final platform nest example is for the pied-billed grebe. It will, at the sound of danger, push the damp lining of the nest over the eggs in the reeds and slide soundlessly into the water. Only its head will be above water. The nest is actually a floating raft.
THE BURROW NEST
The belted kingfisher digs a burrow in a bank. The nest cavity is layered with fish and bone.
The burrowing owl uses the burrow of a prairie or other mammal. It is often lined with dung or grass. They are found on open grasslands, prairies, and golf courses.
THE CAVITY NEST
Some species rely on other species to provide them with a cavity to nest in. A decline in one species can cause a decline in others. Life is interdependent.
The pileated woodpecker nests in a cavity about 50 feet off the ground. No nest material is brought in. The eggs are laid on the bed of wood chips.
The bird requires a large territory. I usually have a pair in my yard in an old bull pine. The problem is that that tree is dangerous because it could fall.
The ivory billed woodpecker disappeared because of forests being cut down. The pileated woodpecker nearly went the same way. It has now managed a comeback.
In a famous story, the naturalist and photographer F. K. Truslow in 1966 witnessed a tree breaking in half. He photographed a female pileated woodpecker picking up the eggs and flying them off to a new nest.
The wood duck builds in a abandoned tree cavities lined with wood chips and down. The pileated woodpecker can help by making these holes.
The baby wood ducks eventually make their big jump out of the hole flapping their insignificant wings unable to fly. It lands on the ground and bounces. Then it gets up instantly to get to its mother. Some of the babies will serve as food for other animals.
The elf owl nests in abandoned gila woodpecker holes left unlined. They live on the desert and can nest in a saguaro cactus.
With the spread of development and agriculture, the wild disappears and starlings take over. They displace even the gila woodpeckers. This ecosystem is found nowhere else in the world. The elf owl weighs less than 2 ounces when fully grown.
The barn owl nests in unlined cavities in barns, steeples, silos, tree cavities, cliff crevices. They become littered with fur and bones. The barn owl is considered by many to be the most valuable and most widespread bird species on earth. Its diet is at least 95% rodents. It does not dissolve the fur and bones. Instead, a few hours later, it will regurgitate them out in neat oval pellets. The pellets are studied and the skulls are counted to understand the diet.
The nuthatch nests in an excavated cavity lined with bark, roots, moss, feathers, and grass. Nuthatches benefit moving downward on a tree because they encounter insects that upwardly mobile woodpeckers and creepers have missed.
Not long after a nestling has eaten, it ejects a white sack from behind its tail containing fecal and urinary waste. The parent picks it up and drops it out of the tree.
The bluebird nests in natural cavities and bluebird houses. They line their nest with grass and weeds. Bluebirds suffered a 90% decline in the 20th century because of felling dead trees and removing dead branches from living trees.
The house wren nests in natural cavities, old woodpecker holes, and birdhouses. The author describes a wren building a nest in an old desk space. It was an opportunity for her to observe the entire process.
THE CUP NEST
The American robin weaves a foundation of twigs, grass, or string worked into a mud cup with an inner lining of fine grasses. Usually built on a branch or in buildings. The author makes a conscious effort to avoid taking robins for granted.
Robins were not always so common. They benefited from the settling of North America and the destruction of the forests. But we are destroying all birds with our choices. We use herbicides and pesticides. We have outdoor cats. The result is destruction of wildlife.
The cliff swallow makes a gourd-shaped flask made of pellets of mud, lined with grass, hair, and feathers. They settle in colonies.
The barn swallow builds a half-circular cup made of mud pellets with straw, lined with feathers. Usually plastered to a building or other structure. Some farmers believe that barns housing swallows will never be struck by lightning. And if a farmer kills a swallow, his cows' milk will go bad.
The American dipper builds a dome of moss on a cliff ledge or midstream, often kept fresh by spray of waterfall. The interior cup is lined with grasses.
The dipper blinks often to clear the spray on its eyes. Could it help with camouflage by the flashing motion resembling the sparkle of a moving stream?
The dipper has a large uropygial gland which functions to waterproof the feathers.
Male dippers are polygynous. A mated pair often remains bonded for less than a month.
The dark-eyed junco builds a cup of grass, moss, and twigs, usually on the ground.
The western meadowlark benefited from the clearing of America's vast deciduous forests.
Some farmers postpone cutting hay until bobolinks are finished nesting.
The black-chinned hummingbird and the ruby-throated hummingbird nest in a cup of plant down woven with spider silk and covered with bits of leaves and flowers.
The Ground Nest
The Platform Nest
The Burrow
The Cavity Nest
The Cup Nest
The Pensile Nest (a tiny hammock suspended between the forks of small twigs that would not support a cup nest)
The Pendulous Nest
No Nest
THE GROUND NEST
How have birds who do ground nests survived? They often now need human protection from other humans.
Terns have managed to exist for 50 million years. They are relatives of gulls and tough fighters. They were practically annihilated for their feathers. They have been saved by the Endangered Species Act. Can we get the damn Republican Party to stop trying to destroy this Act?
Male terns swoop in the air with small silver fish gleaming in their mouths, perhaps to show how they can provide for their mates. Pair bonds gradually form. The female lands on the sand. Copulation takes place in only seconds, a brief coming together of cloacas. At the precise moment of coitus, the female tern tilts her head backward, takes the silver fish from the beak of the male, and swallows it.
Murres have ground nests on the sides of cliffs over the ocean. They are densely packed. They are considered to be the Northern Hemisphere's equivalent of the penguin, but they are members of the auk family. Before lighthouses it was considered illegal to kill murres because their noises alerted boats to shore lines.
Each pair of murres has a territory of a few square feet, yet they return each year to fiercely defend it. They lay only one egg that somehow rarely rolls off the cliff. At the top of the cliff are glaucous gulls waiting to attack. Other glaucous gulls wait at the bottom for something to fall. Eventually, the chicks have to make the jump into the ocean. Incredible bravery.
The northern fulmar nests on rock ledges. In the winter they often rest on the open ocean.
Killdeer lay their eggs on the ground. They are famous for their broken wing display. I saw a pair once in the parking lot of a Little League field.
A whip-poor-will's body provides the camouflage for its eggs on the ground.
Ducks are slowly dying out because of human beings and our land use, pollution, hunting, and so on. The prairies are no longer what they used to be.
Geese are doing a little better than ducks because they breed further north.
The Marbled Murrelet has no nest, just lays an egg on moss in an old growth tree or on bare ground among boulders. It was the last North American bird to have the location of its nest discovered. Reward were offered for the person who could figure out where they came from. A tree surgeon accidentally knocked an egg out of an old growth tree while he was 137 feet in the air.
The final ground nest bird mentioned is the California Condor. It lays a single egg on bare ground in a cave or an inaccessible cliff ledge. It drops it from a standing position and it does not break.
They were once very common until humans did their damage with poisons. There were actually 21 condors left in the wild in 1981. Captive breeding helped out. Now with climate change and more forest fires, they are in danger again.
Note well: it was the Endangered Species Act that saved them. This act is continuously attacked by the Republican party. One of the consequences of voting for them.
THE PLATFORM NEST
Egrets and herons live in great rookeries. I have seen one, and it is quite an incredible sight. I have also read stories of people destroying rookeries for a man-made pond.
In one horrible incident, the author describes a baby egret falling out of the nest and dying in the swamp below with no adult showing the slightest concern. And older chicks push aside young ones when food is scarce.
In the mid 1800s, hunters killed birds during breeding season. Millions of egrets were destroyed to provide feathers for women's hats. The ratio was four birds for each ounce of feathers. One feather auction perhaps alone cost the lives of one million birds. Finally protests and laws stopped the slaughter. And the Audubon Society was formed.
Mourning doves use camouflage, but their biggest defense is their high productivity. The eggs require 2 weeks of incubation, and the young require 2 weeks to fly. The parents may raise 2 to 5 broods per nesting season. Also pigeon milk is exceedingly rich. I never knew they produced a milk through regurgitation.
The bald eagle made a comeback with the banning of DDT.
Harris's hawk builds a nest in the crotch of a saguaro cactus. They are amazingly cooperative birds. They often join together to kill an adult jackrabbit which can feed about 5 or 6 birds.
The great horned owl nests in winter before the foliage obstructs their view of their prey. They eat virtually every mammal or bird out there.
The final platform nest example is for the pied-billed grebe. It will, at the sound of danger, push the damp lining of the nest over the eggs in the reeds and slide soundlessly into the water. Only its head will be above water. The nest is actually a floating raft.
THE BURROW NEST
The belted kingfisher digs a burrow in a bank. The nest cavity is layered with fish and bone.
The burrowing owl uses the burrow of a prairie or other mammal. It is often lined with dung or grass. They are found on open grasslands, prairies, and golf courses.
THE CAVITY NEST
Some species rely on other species to provide them with a cavity to nest in. A decline in one species can cause a decline in others. Life is interdependent.
The pileated woodpecker nests in a cavity about 50 feet off the ground. No nest material is brought in. The eggs are laid on the bed of wood chips.
The bird requires a large territory. I usually have a pair in my yard in an old bull pine. The problem is that that tree is dangerous because it could fall.
The ivory billed woodpecker disappeared because of forests being cut down. The pileated woodpecker nearly went the same way. It has now managed a comeback.
In a famous story, the naturalist and photographer F. K. Truslow in 1966 witnessed a tree breaking in half. He photographed a female pileated woodpecker picking up the eggs and flying them off to a new nest.
The wood duck builds in a abandoned tree cavities lined with wood chips and down. The pileated woodpecker can help by making these holes.
The baby wood ducks eventually make their big jump out of the hole flapping their insignificant wings unable to fly. It lands on the ground and bounces. Then it gets up instantly to get to its mother. Some of the babies will serve as food for other animals.
The elf owl nests in abandoned gila woodpecker holes left unlined. They live on the desert and can nest in a saguaro cactus.
With the spread of development and agriculture, the wild disappears and starlings take over. They displace even the gila woodpeckers. This ecosystem is found nowhere else in the world. The elf owl weighs less than 2 ounces when fully grown.
The barn owl nests in unlined cavities in barns, steeples, silos, tree cavities, cliff crevices. They become littered with fur and bones. The barn owl is considered by many to be the most valuable and most widespread bird species on earth. Its diet is at least 95% rodents. It does not dissolve the fur and bones. Instead, a few hours later, it will regurgitate them out in neat oval pellets. The pellets are studied and the skulls are counted to understand the diet.
The nuthatch nests in an excavated cavity lined with bark, roots, moss, feathers, and grass. Nuthatches benefit moving downward on a tree because they encounter insects that upwardly mobile woodpeckers and creepers have missed.
Not long after a nestling has eaten, it ejects a white sack from behind its tail containing fecal and urinary waste. The parent picks it up and drops it out of the tree.
The bluebird nests in natural cavities and bluebird houses. They line their nest with grass and weeds. Bluebirds suffered a 90% decline in the 20th century because of felling dead trees and removing dead branches from living trees.
The house wren nests in natural cavities, old woodpecker holes, and birdhouses. The author describes a wren building a nest in an old desk space. It was an opportunity for her to observe the entire process.
THE CUP NEST
The American robin weaves a foundation of twigs, grass, or string worked into a mud cup with an inner lining of fine grasses. Usually built on a branch or in buildings. The author makes a conscious effort to avoid taking robins for granted.
Robins were not always so common. They benefited from the settling of North America and the destruction of the forests. But we are destroying all birds with our choices. We use herbicides and pesticides. We have outdoor cats. The result is destruction of wildlife.
The cliff swallow makes a gourd-shaped flask made of pellets of mud, lined with grass, hair, and feathers. They settle in colonies.
The barn swallow builds a half-circular cup made of mud pellets with straw, lined with feathers. Usually plastered to a building or other structure. Some farmers believe that barns housing swallows will never be struck by lightning. And if a farmer kills a swallow, his cows' milk will go bad.
The American dipper builds a dome of moss on a cliff ledge or midstream, often kept fresh by spray of waterfall. The interior cup is lined with grasses.
The dipper blinks often to clear the spray on its eyes. Could it help with camouflage by the flashing motion resembling the sparkle of a moving stream?
The dipper has a large uropygial gland which functions to waterproof the feathers.
Male dippers are polygynous. A mated pair often remains bonded for less than a month.
The dark-eyed junco builds a cup of grass, moss, and twigs, usually on the ground.
The western meadowlark benefited from the clearing of America's vast deciduous forests.
Some farmers postpone cutting hay until bobolinks are finished nesting.
The black-chinned hummingbird and the ruby-throated hummingbird nest in a cup of plant down woven with spider silk and covered with bits of leaves and flowers.
April 7, 2025
Dunning has gathered a vast array of facts about birds' courtship, nesting, and parenting. Ideally, I'd remember it all, but even though I read this book slowly (over a span of several weeks), I'll need to read it again in a year so more of the facts will stick in my mind. The birds are arranged from those who nest directly on the ground to those who build pendulous nests (how do they do that!) illustrating how natural selection might have worked to result in this diversity.
Here are a couple examples of 'bird facts' that are worth remembering:
p 46, Canada geese: Male and female geese both return to their natal breeding grounds, nesting and later migrating in family groups. Thus, there is considerable inbreeding among geese, resulting in extended families that may include yearlings as well as middle-aged and older members, which may still be breeding at the age of 40.
p 70, doves: An interesting characteristic of this family is that all members drink by sucking up water with their bills, much as a horse drinks, rather than tipping their heads back to let the water run down their throats as other birds do.
This is a piece of history that should interest a good many people:
p 133, starlings: A well-meaning admirer of Shakespeare, in an effort to have all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare take up residence around him, released 60 starlings in New York's Central Park in 1890 and 40 more in 1891.. It wasn't long before these new birds were wrecking havoc on many native species.
And on page 193, Dunning echoes my sentiments and fears:
As the human population continues to grow, and the diversity of species on our planet continues to decrease, one could argue that it is fortunate that there are resilient species such as cowbirds, jays, crows, and starlings to take over. While I am not yet resigned to giving up warblers and vireos and tanagers, the day may come when we'll be glad to see any bird at all in the sky.
I can see why they an index was thought unnecessary, but it would have been helpful. The contents page makes for easy references to nest types and the birds that are used as examples of each, but there's info within each description that will be hard to access. Dunning often refers to specific types of behaviors as well as to other types of birds when profiling a species; these should have been listed in an index.
A minor problem: Three sentences in this 198 page book popped out at me as being not only unnecessary but also somewhat jarring. I would have expected an editor to have deleted them.
Overall, I'm always pleased when I find a book that shares info about the natural world in a way that might just capture someone's interest. Thank you Ms Dunning.
2025: It was obviously time for me to reread this book -- so many details, it's not surprising that I forgot many of them after 7 years.
Here are a couple examples of 'bird facts' that are worth remembering:
p 46, Canada geese: Male and female geese both return to their natal breeding grounds, nesting and later migrating in family groups. Thus, there is considerable inbreeding among geese, resulting in extended families that may include yearlings as well as middle-aged and older members, which may still be breeding at the age of 40.
p 70, doves: An interesting characteristic of this family is that all members drink by sucking up water with their bills, much as a horse drinks, rather than tipping their heads back to let the water run down their throats as other birds do.
This is a piece of history that should interest a good many people:
p 133, starlings: A well-meaning admirer of Shakespeare, in an effort to have all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare take up residence around him, released 60 starlings in New York's Central Park in 1890 and 40 more in 1891.. It wasn't long before these new birds were wrecking havoc on many native species.
And on page 193, Dunning echoes my sentiments and fears:
As the human population continues to grow, and the diversity of species on our planet continues to decrease, one could argue that it is fortunate that there are resilient species such as cowbirds, jays, crows, and starlings to take over. While I am not yet resigned to giving up warblers and vireos and tanagers, the day may come when we'll be glad to see any bird at all in the sky.
I can see why they an index was thought unnecessary, but it would have been helpful. The contents page makes for easy references to nest types and the birds that are used as examples of each, but there's info within each description that will be hard to access. Dunning often refers to specific types of behaviors as well as to other types of birds when profiling a species; these should have been listed in an index.
A minor problem: Three sentences in this 198 page book popped out at me as being not only unnecessary but also somewhat jarring. I would have expected an editor to have deleted them.
Overall, I'm always pleased when I find a book that shares info about the natural world in a way that might just capture someone's interest. Thank you Ms Dunning.
2025: It was obviously time for me to reread this book -- so many details, it's not surprising that I forgot many of them after 7 years.
July 30, 2024
Secrets of the nest : the family life of North American birds. The cover is a combination of beautiful, relaxing, and life-affirming. The inside shows and describes different types of birds and the nests that they build. Ya know how most people go crazy over puppies and kittens? I’m like that whenever I see baby birds or waterfowl. They are so cute that I wish that I could have one of my own. Back to the book, the illustrations are glorious.
May 22, 2018
Secrets of the Nest added to my bird knowledge, with its categorization of bird nests by type (ground nests, platform nests, burrow nests, cavity nests, cup nests, and pendulous nests), and description of eggs and hatchlings that belong in each. I loved learning that the author was inspired by a childhood visit to a natural history museum; I preferred bird stories that included a personal element to them. Dunning says that for her avian mother, she would choose a bird that lays eggs in a pendulous nest "so that from the moment I was hatched, I would be swinging in the breeze in a soft, warm pouch with relatively benign siblings." She goes on to describe the pendulous nest of the Northern Oriole. I am most happy to report that a pair of orioles is preparing such a nest somewhere in/near my backyard. I know that based upon the nest gathering activities of a male and female right outside the window where I sit and read. Happy Day!
November 19, 2019
I loved this! I may be a little bias since I love birds and bird watching but learning about all these different birds and how they nest was such a joy for me. It was also beautifully written with a great blend of fact and anecdotes.
October 23, 2009
Sensitive writing & drawings of nests, birds
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February 22, 2011Great Book.
I have used it to teach 4th graders about birds nests.
I also have done a very basic nest program with preschoolers using some of the knowledge I gained from this book.
I have used it to teach 4th graders about birds nests.
I also have done a very basic nest program with preschoolers using some of the knowledge I gained from this book.
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