LATE NESTERS

     Three kinds of abundant birds in southeastern Pennsylvania, including mourning doves, American goldfinches and cedar waxwings, nest late in summer for a variety of reasons.  Most "song" birds in this area are done raising young by the middle of July, but these three adaptable species could be rearing offspring into early September as a result of being dependent on certain foods or nesting materials that are most abundant in late summer. 

     Each pair of handsome mourning doves raises two young per brood, but they "put-out" two young a month, on average, from March into September because they rear two broods at a time through the warmer months. Each pair of doves probably can only feed two young at a time because they regurgitate pre-digested seeds into the beaks of their offspring.  But they compensate for that by hatching chicks in spring and summer. 

     Each pair of doves starts a brood of young early in March.  When that first pair of chicks is half-grown, the parent pair begins another clutch of two eggs in another nursery in a tree.  And when those young are half-grown, the parents start a third clutch of eggs in the first cradle.  And so it goes through each warm month.  But some clutches are destroyed by predators or wind dashing flimsy dove nests from the trees to the ground.

     The striking, little goldfinches don't start raising families until August when milkweed down and thistle down are more available to line their pretty, little nests that they place in shrubbery and sapling trees in overgrown fields and meadows, and newer suburban areas.

     Goldfinch nurseries are petite and attractive.  They are made of fine grasses, lined with milkweed and/or thistle down and bound together with spider webbing.  Spiders webs are also used to bind those pretty, little cradles to the twigs they rest on.  It is stated that some goldfinch nests are so tightly built that they can hold water for a bit.      

     Parent goldfinches feed their babies pre-digested weed and grass seeds, and grain, all of which are more abundant later in summer.  Each pair of these birds rear only one brood per year, probably because the first one was so late they don't have time for another brood to be ready for winter before it strikes.

     Each pair of attractive cedar waxwings raise one or two broods of young per summer into autumn.  They feed their newly-hatched young protein-rich insects that they handily catch in mid-air, particularly over ponds and creeks.  But later, they feed their growing progeny a variety of berries, which are more common late in summer, into fall, which is why they nest late. 

     Waxwings ingest berries through much of each year.  In winter, they travel in gypsy groups from berry patch to berry patch to consume those fruits, a habit that makes them unique.  They often have to compete with robins, starlings, mockingbirds and other kinds of berry-eating birds for those fruits.

     There is a reason for everything in nature.  These interesting birds nest late because of the foods and nesting materials they use.  Or in the case of doves, rearing only two young at a time.  Nature, in all its diversity to survive, is intriguing to experience.