In The Sims 4 Cottage Living, your Sims can meet and befriend a variety of wild animals, like bunnies, foxes, and even birds! Becoming friends with these animals offers your Sims several different perks and benefits, particularly when it comes to gardening.
Read on to learn more about wild birds!
Meeting Wild Birds
If your Sims want to meet wild birds, they’ll have to go to the new world that comes with this expansion, Henford-on-Bagley. You don’t have to live in Henford-on-Bagley in order to build a relationship with the wild animals there. You can take a day trip or a vacation there in order to meet the wild creatures. If you own the Outdoor Retreat game pack, we recommend pitching a tent up in the national park in the Bramblewood area of this world and spending a few days roaming the area. This neighbourhood has plenty of bird and rabbit houses all around the area.
Look for wild bird houses around the area; they look like tall, slender stumps with small holes in them. An example below:
Once you find a wild bird home, it’s best to avoid most interactions at first. The birds won’t trust you and all socials are likely to fail. Instead, have your Sim watch the birds until you’ve built up a bit of a relationship with them. At least a quarter filled friendship bar is recommended before trying to attempt other socials.
Socializing with the Birds
Once the birds trust you enough, you can start trying out other socials with them. There are various conversation socials, both mean and friendly. You can see which interactions are mean and which ones are friendly by the icon next to it. Your Sim can also sing to the birds which is a social with an adorable new animation.
Singing to the birds can have good or bad results. When the interaction is successful, the birds will perch on your Sim’s hand and sing with your Sim. When the interaction fails, your Sim will get pooped on.
Unlike the wild bunnies and foxes, your Sim will befriend the entire flock instead of individual birds. They will show up in the relationship panel as Flock of Birds but you can rename the flock by clicking on their bird house. Since your Sim interacts with the entire flock as one, you cannot name their home and the birds separately like you can with bunnies. Renaming the bird house renames the flock as well.
Gifting the Birds
A good way to build a relationship with wild birds is to bring them presents. Many different things can be given to wild birds as gifts. You may have more gift options depending on which add-on packs you have installed. Here are the different types of items that can be gifted to wild birds:
- Flowers
- Fish
- Farmed Insects (Eco Lifestyle)
- Eggs
- Drinks
- Cross-Stitch
- Canned Goods
- Books
- Wool
- Wooden Sculptures
- Wild Insects (Outdoor Retreat)
- Veggie Meals
- Produce
- Paintings
- Milk
- Meat Meals
Each flock of birds has their own gift preferences and it’s largely trial-and-error figuring out those preferences. Your Sim will just have to try gifting them many different types of things to discover what they like. You don’t need to be scared of gifting them the wrong item, though; we found that giving them any gift would increase relationship slightly, even if it was a gift they didn’t particularly like. Liked and loved gifts provided the biggest relationship boost, however. Sims with the Animal Enthusiast trait have a slight advantage when it comes to gifting wild animals; they have the ability to Discover Gift Preferences on wild animals.
Once your Sim has gifted the flock, you will see a thumbs down, a thumbs up, or a heart next to that category of items the next time you try to gift them. This reminds you of their preferences you’ve discovered so far so you don’t have to commit it to memory. Each flock has a set of disliked gifts, a set of liked gifts, and one favourite type of item. Once you discover a flock’s favourite gift, it will be listed on their info panel when you hover over either their home or their portrait in the relationship panel.
Wild birds can also give your Sim gifts. If you’ve built up a friendship with them, you can sometimes receive a gift from them when you click on the Gifting social category. Sims can receive many different types of items from wild birds, including animals treats and food.
Benefits of Wild Bird Friendship
Once your Sim has become friends with a flock of birds in Henford-on-Bagley, they unlock the wild bird house in Build/Buy to place on their home lot. This allows you to always have bird friends nearby, even if your Sims don’t live in Henford-on-Bagley.
Becoming friends with a flock of birds also allows your Sim to ask them for gardening help. While a flock of birds is helping in the garden, they will eat any bugs around your plants for you so you don’t have to spray for bugs. They will also sing to any oversized crops you’re growing to encourage them to grow larger.
