Question about birds

[JPS]

With the amount of bird photos on this forum, I wondered if anyone could answer me this.

Do birds (your everyday blackbirds, sparrows etc etc) live in nests all year or just when hatching the egg and rearing the young?

 

[CT]

The nest is just for reproduction, and once it's served it's purpose, it's abandoned and they'll sleep and take cover wherever they can, although the type of preferred habitat depends very much on species.

Wrens, which are solitary shy birds will sleep in huge flocks in winter especially when the weather is severe, and will take any cover, including man made cover which offers protection. There's a recorded case of 90 Wrens being counted leaving an abandoned squirrel drey when it was disturbed. I'm not sure how accurate the counting could have been though.

 

[JPS]

Thanks for that, I ask because we have a nest in one of our trees. The newborns were, well lets say nature took its course and a cat got them. I need to trim this tree back and have held off doing so due to the nest. Am I safe to now tackle the tree now that the birds seem to have left the nest empty now for about a week?

 

[CT]

You should be fine to trim now.