You can improve the appeal of your backyard bird habitat by giving birds a dust bath where they can clean and condition their feathers.

What is a dust bath?

Many birds will visit a patch of dry sandy soil to have a dust bath. A bird will often scratch and loosen the soil with its beak or claws and hollow out a little depression to sit in. It fluffs up its feathers and proceeds to stir up the loose dust with wings and feet, sometimes creating a visible cloud of dust. The bird may even lie down and roll in the dust. Dust settles on feathers and filters down to the bird’s skin, coating everything. Finally, the bird shakes most of the dust off and then spends times preening and grooming its feathers.

Why do Birds Take Dust Baths?

For birds that take dust baths, the activity is important for feather maintenance. The dust soaks up excess moisture and oil and probably helps to remove tiny parasites that live on feathers. It’s thought that dust also sooths irritated skin and discourages skin parasites that infest birds. Taking a dust bath may even help birds cool down on hot days.

How to make a dust bath

You may already have a patch of exposed sandy soil in your backyard bird habitat that’s perfect for a dust bath. If this is the case, you might just loosen up the soil a little bit and make sure your dust bath has plenty of exposure to the sun. Then just watch to see if birds are visiting.

If you want to create a dust bath, follow these steps:

• Choose a good location. An area 1.2 metres square (4 feet) is ideal, in a location that receives lots of sun and is well away from bushes or other features that might allow cats or other predators to lurk and pounce.
• Lift out any sod in the bath area and break up the soil beneath to a depth of about 15 cm (6 in).
• If you are worried about grass or weeds encroaching from the sides, line the edges of the dust bath with wood, stone, bricks, garden edging or some other material.
• Fill the bird bath back up to ground level with fine sand, mixing it well with the loosened soil.
• Tidy up the dust bath periodically, adding more sand if necessary and removing any debris.

Keep in mind that birds may leave droppings, and skin and feather parasites in the dust bath. Cats, too, are attracted to sand pits and tend to use them as litter boxes. And children like sand boxes too! Bird dust baths should not be shared with cats and children for health reasons.

Other garden projects for birders:

Creating Shelter for Birds

Install a Bird Bath to Entice Birds

Sources:

Ehrlich, Paul R., David S. Dobkin, and Darryl Wheye. “Bathing and Dusting”

Shalaway, Scott. “How to Help Birds Beat the Heat.” post-gazette.com

The Helpful Gardener “Bird gardening: How to attract Birds to Your Garden.” The Helpful Gardener

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