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For millennia a variety of North American bird species used bison hair during nest construction but when the \u201cbuffalo\u201d was brought to the brink of extinction by hunters in the late 1800\u2019s that resource was essentially gone. Today there are very few places where bison hair is available to birds and Antelope Island is one of them.<\/p>\n
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The 500+ bison on the island do a lot of scratching so almost anything vertical and solid can have bison hair stuck to it. The sturdy post this Rough-legged Hawk is perched on is a prime example – there’s bison hair on the top and left side of the post. It was a cold morning so much of the hair was covered with frost.<\/p>\n
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When nesting season rolls around a variety of birds take advantage of the bison hair bounty that they can collect at their leisure without having to steal it from a living bison. This is a grab shot of a Common Raven with a beakful of bison hair and some more hair attached to its feet.\u00a0It’s a convenient coincidence for birds that nesting season coincides pretty closely with the time of year that bison (and other large mammals) are shedding their winter coats.<\/p>\n
When birds use bison hair as nesting material they typically don’t use it to construct the more sturdy outer portions of their nests. Instead they use it to line the nest’s inner cup. Mammal hair is an excellent insulator and it’s soft.<\/p>\n
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I photographed this Loggerhead Shrike seconds after it landed on top of the sagebrush its nest was in. Yup, that’s bison hair in its bill and strung all the way down to its feet.<\/p>\n
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A few years ago I spent many hours with a pair of Western Kingbirds on the island as the female constructed their nest (only the female of the species builds nests) while her mate was usually perched nearby. For the first several days she brought in small twigs and grasses but there was an abrupt change in construction material when she began work on the lining of the nest’s inner cup.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/western-kingbird-8408-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"western-kingbird-8408-ron-dudley\\"")
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At that point her preferred nesting material became bison hair, pretty much exclusively. The bison on the island had recently completed shedding their heavy winter coats so their fur was a readily available resource, with clumps of it stuck to fences, large rocks and sign posts all over the island. Bison hair makes an ideal nest liner for its insulating, softness and comfort qualities.<\/p>\n
At first it was difficult to tell what she was using to construct the nest because she usually disappeared into the nest so fast that I couldn\u2019t identify the material. But then I made a concerted effort to photograph her just as she was landing and on my last day with her that material was usually bison hair.<\/p>\n
That morning I was able to get three very similar photos as she brought in three different loads of bison hair. Because her landing posture and wing position were the same in all three images I clipped her wings in all three shots but the nesting material can easily be identified as bison hair.<\/p>\n
This first photo has a golden glow because it was taken soon after sunrise and the light was very warm.<\/p>\n
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Twenty four minutes later I was able to get another shot where bison hair could be identified.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/western-kingbird-8545-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"western-kingbird-8545-ron-dudley\\"")
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And 66 minutes after that I got another one. In-between she made many other trips to the nest with nesting material but even though most of the time I couldn\u2019t identify what it was I’m confident that it was often bison hair. Maybe always.<\/p>\n
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Bison hair obviously makes a wonderfully effective and convenient nest lining material for a variety of birds and in recent years several commercial enterprises began to offer bison hair for sale to bird lovers as nesting material. One of them was BisonNest out of Colorado. A few years ago their graphic designer actually contacted me about use of the shrike photo above in their advertising but in the end it didn\u2019t work out.<\/p>\n
And I see that BisonNest’s website is no longer active so it must not have been a viable commercial enterprise.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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The almost perfect lining material for bird nest cups.\u00a0 (7 photos)<\/p>\n