Just trying to fit in (Image: Superstock)

Now here’s a clever design trick. Birds actively match the colour of their nests to their surroundings to blend in.

To test if birds choose to camouflage their nests or whether they are well-camouflaged simply because of the colour of available building tools, like twigs and leaves, Ida Bailey and her team at the University of St Andrews, UK, performed a spot of redecorating.

They wallpapered the cages of 21 male zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) with a new colour – blue, pink or yellow – and offered the birds nesting materials in two colours, one that matched the wallpaper, and one that contrasted with it.


All of the birds built their nests predominantly with material that matched their wallpaper. Bailey says their experiment is the first to show that birds carefully choose the colour of their nest materials.

But all of the birds also included a small amount of the non-matching colour, which Bailey says may provide “disruptive camouflage”, breaking up the outline of the nest to help conceal it from predators.

Journal reference: The Auk: Ornithological Advances, doi.org/v5d

This article appeared in print under the headline “Birds’ eye for colour coordination”