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Gardening

Find tips and tricks to make your garden or allotment flourish on our Gardening forum.

Birds and catmint

1 reply

MasterShardlake · 06/06/2024 20:11

I've been watching a pair of starlings carefully pulling individual leaves off my newly planted catmint plant then gathering them up and flying off. No idea why they would do this so googled and it seems to be something that starlings and blue tits have been seen to do with mint leaves, possibly for the antibacterial benefits, they line the nest with them.
No specific mention of catmint though but perhaps my Walkers Low smells minty enough for the starlings.
https://nestwatch.org/connect/blog/avian-apothecaries/

Avian Apothecaries - NestWatch

Not only do humans self-medicate with aromatic herbs such as lavender, mint, and sage—it turns out that birds also utilize pungent plants in their nests.

https://nestwatch.org/connect/blog/avian-apothecaries/

OP posts:
lcakethereforeIam · 07/06/2024 10:59

That's fascinating. I've heard/reads lots of bird species are believed to use plants in this way.

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