Not a pet? Squirrels and birds nesting questions?

I love the birds and squirrels in my yard, the squirrels are so much fun to watch and are quite friendly too.





I want to do nice things for them for entertaining me since I can't have pets - has anyone provided bedding material for birds and squirrels before? I have a huge bag of dryer lint I was saving for this purpose, but can't really bring myself to set it out there for them. What about yarn? Do you think birds would take yarn/string if I set it out for them? Am I starting too early, should I wait until later in the spring?





Has anyone done this before?Not a pet? Squirrels and birds nesting questions?
I often provide nesting material for my outdoor feathered friends.





Cornell Lab of Ornithology suggests:





Ideally you should provide nest material naturally by leaving or creating wild, natural areas on your property (perhaps hidden from your neighbor's view) where plants can grow into thickets, and leaves and twigs can fall and not be raked up immediately. This untidy debris gives a variety of material for the birds to pick through when they are building nests. They may even pick through your compost pile looking for suitable nest material.








Alternatively, you can put out concentrated stashes of nest material. It can be natural materials like straw, small sticks, and twigs, or manmade materials such as yarn and string. Try putting out any combination of the following:








Dead twigs


Dead leaves


Dry grass


Yarn or string鈥攃ut into 4- to 8-inch pieces


Human or animal hair (especially horse hair)


Fur (e.g. dog or cat fur)


Sheep's wool


Feathers


Plant fluff or down (e.g. cattail fluff, cottonwood down)


Kapok, cotton batting, or other stuffing material


Moss


Bark strips


Pine needles


Thin strips of cloth, about 1 inch wide by 6 inches long


Shredded paper





Among the strange materials birds occasionally use in their nests are snake skins, plastic strips, cellophane, and aluminum foil. Many small birds use spider webs to glue nest material together. Swallows, phoebes, and American Robins use mud to construct their nests. You might consider creating or keeping a muddy puddle in your garden for them.





What about dryer lint? Some people include this as suitable bird nesting material. Others recommend against it because it is porous and dries out poorly if it's rained on in the nest. Still others warn that wet dryer lint dries into a hard mass, providing poor nest insulation, however this may happen only if it contains laundry detergent or fabric softener residue. More information is needed before we can recommend offering dryer lint.


http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBir鈥?/a>Not a pet? Squirrels and birds nesting questions?
I did it for my caged birds and for wild ones as well. I also put up nesting boxes for squirrels (I rehab).


The one thing I would correct from above poster, nix the long string and horse hair. If it becomes wrapped around the leg of baby birds or baby squirrels, it will cause loss of legs or toes due to circulation being cut off.





My wild wrens help themselves to whatever they fancy; dryer lint, feathers from pillows, the coco fiber from around hanging planters, the long fronds from my rainbow fern. . .





I bring hair shed from grooming the horses but no mane or tail hair. For squirrels, wool yarn in short pieces, old wool blankets cut in small squares, you'd be surprised how effectively they can shred and fluff.