I have always told customers in my Wild Bird store to only use dryer lint free of fabric softener. What I had heard was that the fabric softener interferred with the ability of the feathers to insulate the bird. I did a little check on the Cornell Website and found this one quote from them. I would just be wary of offering any product that may contain some of our chemicals.

"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."

On another topic, I am visiting Washington on the 23rd through the 30th of this month. With the Whooper Swan appearing near the Skagit area I would appreciate any sitings prior to my visit. I may make a little detour from visiting family and run up there to try and locate it. I've been away from the area for nearly five years now and remembering all the roads and great observation spots may be a little sketchy. Please be as detailed as possible when reporting locations.

Thanks so much,
Yvonne Bombardier
Wild Birds Unlimited
Dawsonville, GA
ravenn439 at alltel.net or
wbudawsonville at alltel.net

----- Original Message -----
From: Guttman,Burton
To: Tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 11:30 AM
Subject: [Tweeters] Clothes lint for nests?


I'm known to be a nut on waste reduction and recycling, and I'm a citizen representative on the Thurston County Solid Waste Advisory Committee. So a relative of ours, who lived here for a while and, naturally, used our clothes washer and drier, has challenged me to find a use for clothes lint, the stuff that accumulates on the lint filter of the drier. Well, that's quite a challenge. But then I thought of our little feathered friends and started to wonder: would this stuff be any good as nesting material? The main problem is that the fibers are very short, but birds such as goldfinches use the soft fibers of thistles to line their nests, and maybe other birds could weave in some drier lint. Of course, even one week of clothes washing produces so much lint that it would take quite a few birds to use it, and you understand that this isn't really a serious question about recycling. But I still wonder: if I put this out in the woods here during nesting season, would birds use it?

Burt Guttman
The Evergreen State College
Olympia, WA 98505 guttmanb at evergreen.edu
Home: 7334 Holmes Island Road S. E., Olympia, 98503



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