'Craziest' find in woman's backyard baffles Aussies: 'Help'

A woman was overcome with emotion this week after making an unexpected discovery in her backyard. The Aussie resident had just returned home from a two-week holiday to find a bird nest balancing precariously on top of her washing line where she'd hung a towel out to dry before she left.

The resident quickly learned that a native willie wagtail was responsible for the structure with a female bird later seen feeding her chicks. And while it may seem like an odd place to set up shop, it's not too surprising, urban bird expert at Birdlife Australia, Sean Dooley, told Yahoo News.

The woman grew concerned after noticing the nest "starting to tip on an angle". Worried it might fall, she wondered if she should attempt to move it — so she asked for "help".

"Unfortunately one of the babies has fallen out and died," the woman wrote on social media where she'd sought advice this week. "Should I try to move the nest even at the risk of getting swooped?"

Expert reveals likely reason for bird's chosen nesting spot

Aussies couldn't quite believe the bird's chosen location to build her nest. "This is the craziest nest ever," one said. But Dooley said there's likely a good reason why the mother bird chose the washing line.

"We might think that birds make dumb choices as to their nesting site, but it's a big decision for them, and they weigh up a lot of factors. They've probably nested there for a reason," he told Yahoo.

"It may have felt like being in a site with high human traffic there would be fewer bird predators around because of the people being around all the time. Whether the same could be said for cats is another question."

In fact, "the clothesline swinging in the breeze is not all that different to where willie wagtails would nest normally," Dooley pointed out.

They tend to nest in the outer branches of the trees, "so they're swinging around all the time anyway so it's not all that different". "If the nest fails, they usually learn and try and will build elsewhere the next time," he said.

Aussies warned against attempting to move a bird nest

Despite the woman's concerns over one chick already dying, sadly "there's always a high attrition rate of young birds," Dooley revealed.

"They tend to have three or four eggs, so if they can successfully raise one chick, it's considered a success".

Dooley said it's best to leave the bird and its nest where it is if possible to avoid interfering with the animal's livelihood. What's more, attempting to interfere could put you at risk of being attacked.

"Parent birds make their threat displays towards people. They wag their tails furiously and fly out to make their displeasure known with an angry, ratcheting call, which sounds a bit like rattling a box of matches," he explained.

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The woman later revealed she was able to "create a hammock" using the towel which she eventually draped across the other wire for protection, but decided to leave the nest. "By that stage, I decided she now had ownership," she joked.

Bird numbers declining across Australia

While willie wagtails have always been a "fairly successful urban bird", numbers have been declining Dooley said, for reasons not yet confirmed — but there are some theories.

"The finger of suspicion points to the rise and rise of the noisy miner, which is a native honeyeater that's boomed in numbers in the eastern states where we've seen the biggest decline in willie wagtails," he explained.

"It's very interesting to see there are no noisy miners or the equivalent species in suburban Perth, where the willie wagtail numbers are holding steady. Miners are a very aggressive species that tend to drive out smaller birds from their territory."

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