Eastern Phoebe Nesting: Nest, Eggs and Young

Eastern Phoebes build a cup of mud and green moss on a sheltered ledge or wall, usually with a roof close overhead: under a bridge, a porch or the eaves of a house or barn. The female lays 4 or 5 white eggs, and most pairs nest twice a year, often reusing the same nest: the first eggs can be laid in late March, and the last clutches are started by about early July. This page covers the nest, the eggs and the young, and how to put up a nesting shelf; for identification, song and range, see the Eastern Phoebe guide.

On a ledge or in a niche with shelter above, usually low down: from under 3 feet to about 16 feet (1-5 m) above the ground or water. Many nests today are on structures: bridges and culverts, barns, porch beams, light fixtures and the eaves of houses. Before there were buildings and bridges, phoebes probably nested on rock outcrops and streamside banks, and they still use rock where they find it.

A good site keeps the nest dry and out of reach. Damp rock is avoided, because a mud nest can loosen and fall in early spring, and the birds prefer a spot high enough to be beyond ground predators, with a ledge or rough patch to start the nest on and a ceiling close above it. Some trees or shrubs nearby matter too: phoebes need woody cover within a few yards of the nest.

Odd sites turn up: nests have been found down a well, in a cistern, on sagging wallpaper in an empty house and in a woodpile. On bridges with many identical niches, a female sometimes starts several nests at once.

The nest is a cup of mud and green moss with some leaves, lined with fine grass and hair. The moss is always there, though late nests built in dry weather have less, and it makes a phoebe nest easy to recognize. The cup itself is perfectly round, about 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) across, inside a nest about 4.5 inches (11-12 cm) wide.

The shape depends on the site. A nest stuck to a wall is often more than 4 inches (10 cm) tall; one sitting on a ledge can be as little as 2.5 inches (6 cm) tall and uses less mud, weighing about half as much. An early ledge nest can weigh less than an ounce (24 g); a wall nest as much as 12 ounces (334 g).

The female chooses the site and does all the building. The male shows her possible spots, including old nests, by hovering in front of them or crouching on them with fluttering wings, now and then with a harsh chatter, and he follows her to and fro while she builds.

On a bare wall she has to start in the air: she hovers and flicks mud at the spot until there is enough of a lump to stand on, then builds upward against the wall. Work is busiest from daybreak to mid-morning. A first nest takes about a week, sometimes two; repairing an old one takes about 4 days. A finished nest often stands empty for one to two weeks before the first egg.

Yes, often. Old nests are repaired with a fresh rim of moss and a new lining, then used again, for a second brood the same year or in a later year. In a given year, more than half (up to 78%) of the old phoebe nests already in place are renovated and used. Phoebes also take over old Barn Swallow and American Robin nests, and swallows use phoebe nests in turn, so a nest on a bridge can serve both species over the years and grow very large.¹

Adults rarely move to a new site between years, so the same pair sometimes nests in the same place 2 or 3 years running. Within a season, pairs mostly stay together: in an Indiana study, about 9 in 10 birds kept the same mate between nesting attempts.²

Phoebes readily take to a nesting shelf on a house or barn. Fix it to the building 3 to 16 feet (1-5 m) up, right under an overhang such as the eaves, ideally near fresh water, and space shelves about 165 feet (50 m) apart. It can face any direction.³ Put it up well before the breeding season.

Platforms work in culverts too. In a south-central Indiana study, 17 of the first 20 platforms fixed inside round culverts were used in their first season, and 29 of 30 the next year after 10 more went up. Nest success in the pipe culverts was generally high. Use only culverts more than 4 feet (1.2 m) across, and avoid any that fill in spring floods.¹

Phoebes nest early. Pairs form soon after the birds arrive, and in studies building started as early as mid-March in the south of the range, late March in Indiana, early April in southern Michigan and the Appalachians of Maryland, and late April in the northern US. The first eggs are laid in late March in the south of the main range, laying peaks in mid-April in southern Illinois, Kansas and Indiana, and the earliest northern Wisconsin clutches are started in early May.

The second clutch usually follows 7 to 14 days after the first brood leaves the nest, and the last clutches are started by about the end of June or early July.

The clutch is usually 4 or 5 eggs, sometimes 2 to 6. Five is the commonest clutch, and early clutches are larger than late ones. The eggs are white, with little or no gloss; now and then the last egg laid has a few reddish-brown dots. Each is about 0.75 by 0.6 inches (19 x 15 mm) and weighs about 2 g; in Midwest studies, summer eggs were a little heavier than spring ones. Eggs are laid early in the morning, shortly after daylight. If a whole clutch is lost, the female usually lays again within 9 or 10 days.

Only the female incubates. She starts with the last egg in spring, or the second-to-last in summer, and sits for about 16 days (15-16). In an Indiana study her spells on the eggs averaged about 12 minutes, and in three studies she covered them 57-64% of the time; the male does not seem to feed her. She also sleeps in the nest cup every night, even before laying begins.¹

Each egg takes about 4 hours to hatch, and many clutches hatch within a day. The parents carry the shells away straight after.

A newly hatched phoebe weighs about 1.65 g, about a twelfth of an adult. Its eyes are closed, it has only sparse gray down on deep pink skin, and its open mouth is orange with yellow edges. The female broods the chicks for at least 8 days, more in cold weather.

The eyes open at 6 to 8 days, and by about 10 days the young can keep themselves warm. By 13 days they stand on the rim and flap their wings, and by 15 days they can fly fairly well. They leave at about 16 days, sometimes as late as 20, and may leave early, from about 12 days, if disturbed.

The parents keep the nest clean. They eat the chicks' droppings for the first 6 days or so, then carry them away; from about 14 days the young void over the rim themselves.

Only animal food: insects and spiders. Both parents feed the young, the female more; males made about 41% of the visits in one Ontario study. Each visit feeds a single chick. Small chicks get small items, probably flies and spiders, and older ones larger prey such as bees, wasps, moths and caterpillars.¹

It adds up. At one nest of four young, the parents made 211 feeding trips on the first day, 845 when the chicks were 12 days old and nearly 9,000 from hatching to fledging.⁴

For their first week out of the nest, the young stay together in low, dense cover near the nest, where both parents feed them. In the second week they begin to catch food for themselves and wander farther. They are independent about 2 weeks after fledging.

In southern Indiana nearly every female that raised a first brood tried again, and a female raised about 6 young a year on average.⁵ In a northern Wisconsin study, where laying started about a month later but ended at about the same time, just over half the females tried a second brood.

The Brown-headed Cowbird lays in phoebe nests, more in some places than others: in studies the share of nests ranged from none in western Maryland and 1% in northern Wisconsin to 21% in central and northern Illinois and 24% in eastern Kansas, and was higher in first broods. Cowbirds often remove a phoebe egg as well. In most parasitized nests only the cowbird hatches, and a phoebe chick that hatches later starves; about 1 in 10 parasitized nests raises both.¹ For how to spot a cowbird egg, see cowbird eggs.

Predators are the main cause of nest failure, behind about half to 70% of losses in two studies. Rat snakes, raccoons and coyotes are confirmed nest predators, and Blue Jays, crows, chipmunks, mice and House Wrens probably take eggs or young. The female defends the nest much more boldly than the male, scolding with loud chips and, rarely, mostly once there are young, flying at the intruder.

Northern fowl mites can kill nestlings, most often in second broods; they caused 6% of failed nests in one Indiana study. The mites do not survive the winter in an old nest, so a nest reused the next year carries no extra risk, but one reused for a second brood in the same summer may.

How long are Eastern Phoebes in the nest?

The young stay in the nest for about 16 days after hatching, sometimes up to 20. Add about 16 days of incubation before that, and a nest holds eggs or young for about a month. See nestlings.

How many broods do Eastern Phoebes have?

Usually two attempts over most of the range, often in the same nest: in southern Indiana nearly every female that raised a first brood tried again, but in northern Wisconsin just over half did.

1. Weeks, H. P., Jr. (2020). Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe), version 1.0. Birds of the World (A. F. Poole, editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.easpho.01
2. Beheler, A. S., Rhodes, O. E., Weeks, H. P. (2003). Breeding site and mate fidelity in Eastern Phoebes (Sayornis phoebe) in Indiana. The Auk 120: 990-999. doi:10.1642/0004-8038(2003)120[0990:BSAMFI]2.0.CO;2
3. NestWatch, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Eastern Phoebe: Right Bird, Right House. NestWatch. Accessed 1 November 2026. Source
4. Kendeigh, S. C. (1952). Parental care and its evolution in birds. Illinois Biological Monographs 18. Accessed 1 November 2026.
5. Weeks, H. P., Jr. (1979). Nesting ecology of the Eastern Phoebe in southern Indiana. Wilson Bulletin 91: 441-454. Accessed 1 November 2026.
6. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Eastern Phoebe. All About Birds. Accessed 1 November 2026. Source
7. National Audubon Society. Eastern Phoebe. Guide to North American Birds. Accessed 1 November 2026. Source
8. NestWatch, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Eastern Phoebe (Common Nesting Birds). NestWatch. Accessed 1 November 2026. Source