How to Catch a Bird in Lights Out Mode???

[Pop Guy]

Hi!
I need a quick and effective way to catch a bird in no-light mode because, despite trying to set a bird trap far from the base with bait inside, the bird never arrives. Many days have passed now, winter is almost over, and I'm worried I won't be able to catch the bluebird I need. I'm using seeds for bait, and the cage is outside the area my character loads. In theory, it should work, but so far, it hasn't worked.
Thanks in advance for reading and your suggestions.

[DezLamb86]

You used to be able to bait a bird trap with seeds and whenever you would unload/load it a bird could spawn in the trap. I don't know if this is still possible though.

[astroapyr]

Will it make a difference to wear a feather hat?

[DezLamb86]

You could try relogging a few times

[WendyHater9000]

44 minutes ago, Pop Guy said:

Hi!
I need a quick and effective way to catch a bird in no-light mode because, despite trying to set a bird trap far from the base with bait inside, the bird never arrives. Many days have passed now, winter is almost over, and I'm worried I won't be able to catch the bluebird I need. I'm using seeds for bait, and the cage is outside the area my character loads. In theory, it should work, but so far, it hasn't worked.
Thanks in advance for reading and your suggestions.

Change to wickerbottom, get the egg from pengull, make the bird book

[JazzyGames]

7 hours ago, DezLamb86 said:

You used to be able to bait a bird trap with seeds and whenever you would unload/load it a bird could spawn in the trap. I don't know if this is still possible though.

Still works!

https://youtube.com/shorts/2t8BPm7S5x0?si=-8Quk86yMX_iuKk5

[Evelo]

I personally use Catcoons, they have a small chance to vomit out birds. They seem to be the most reliable method for me, seeds are much harder to acquire I've found, but once you get the cage built, you're golden.

[Mike23Ua]

9 hours ago, Pop Guy said:

Hi!
I need a quick and effective way to catch a bird in no-light mode because, despite trying to set a bird trap far from the base with bait inside, the bird never arrives. Many days have passed now, winter is almost over, and I'm worried I won't be able to catch the bluebird I need. I'm using seeds for bait, and the cage is outside the area my character loads. In theory, it should work, but so far, it hasn't worked.
Thanks in advance for reading and your suggestions.

There’s several things you can do that are super early game that will make your lights out mode just seem like permanent night until Klei patches it out so you can not place Boat Masts on Dry Land, You can just place masts everywhere with Deck Illuminator Upgrades, until you can obtain better lighting methods later. This allows you to basically set up Street Lights all throughout your lights out game world, Catching Birds should work like normal: they’ll still land in traps that are baited.

[Capybara007]

19 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

There’s several things you can do that are super early game that will make your lights out mode just seem like permanent night until Klei patches it out so you can not place Boat Masts on Dry Land, You can just place masts everywhere with Deck Illuminator Upgrades, until you can obtain better lighting methods later. This allows you to basically set up Street Lights all throughout your lights out game world, Catching Birds should work like normal: they’ll still land in traps that are baited.

do you think deck illuminator is infinite?

[Mike23Ua]

55 minutes ago, Capybara007 said:

do you think deck illuminator is infinite?

No.. but you can refill them to power them on, shouldn’t be too hard to do.

[Capybara007]

5 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

No.. but you can refill them to power them on, shouldn’t be too hard to do.

But they are literally just campfires? Why "until klei patches it out"?

7 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

There’s several things you can do that are super early game that will make your lights out mode just seem like permanent night until Klei patches it out 

 

[Mike23Ua]

23 minutes ago, Capybara007 said:

But they are literally just campfires? Why "until klei patches it out"?

 

Dunno.. sometimes Klei feels like the Anti-Fun Police. I’m sure they’re aware we can build boat masts on dry land (I use them to mark base locations & skin them to easily identify which resources are in which base) But if it’s something they don’t intend for us to do.. even if it’s 13 years later they’ll patch it out.

[Edible Coal]

Deck Illuminator  light range is just too sad to use it as a light source...

[Lovens]

6 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Dunno.. sometimes Klei feels like the Anti-Fun Police. I’m sure they’re aware we can build boat masts on dry land (I use them to mark base locations & skin them to easily identify which resources are in which base) But if it’s something they don’t intend for us to do.. even if it’s 13 years later they’ll patch it out.

May I ask, out of curiosity, why do you store different resources in different bases and what is your mast marking system exactly? What do you do if your base has more than one type of resource stored in it? Why not use things intended for marking resources already - like a little sign that you can draw resource type on? Or a big sign you can write on? 

Back to the topic - baiting bird trap with the seed and then unloading the trap should work with 50% probability. If it didn't work, try to re-bait and repeat it. Make sure you walk a few screens away to make it unloaded. I got a bird with this trick relatively recently in a nothing world which also has no birds land around the player naturally. 

14 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

There’s several things you can do that are super early game that will make your lights out mode just seem like permanent night 

This is what lights out mode is. It's a permanent night essentially. 

[Capybara007]

9 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

But if it’s something they don’t intend for us to do.. even if it’s 13 years later they’ll patch it out.

why are you always speaking up for the "INTENDED" way to play dst? do you really think they will patch such a dumb feature? you do not get any advantage from building a deck illuminator over a firepit

[GetNerfedOn]

[gaymime]

32 minutes ago, GetNerfedOn said:

lololol, my personal bird/seed solution in lightsout

[oregu]

18 hours ago, Evelo said:

I personally use Catcoons, they have a small chance to vomit out birds. They seem to be the most reliable method for me, seeds are much harder to acquire I've found, but once you get the cage built, you're golden.

For seeds, you only need one or two panflutes. You drop the bird on the ground, walk a bit away from it, force attack it with a sea fishing rod, right as you hit it, you use the panflute. After hitting it 4 times, you use a salve on it. Repeat until you get the two seeds you need. You can also use timing to not have to hit it with the sea fishing rod, but the timing from when the bird flies away is not consistent, as far as I'm aware. I think that's faster that digging in tumbleweeds, so I think its worth it.

Edited August 31, 2025 by oregu

[Pop Guy]

Update!

After logging back in and out of the server, within about a quarter of an hour I caught three winter birds with a simple bird trap. Evidently, their spawning had stopped for some reason, but when I reloaded the server, they started spawning off-screen again as usual. The old method still works.
Thanks everyone for the replies and many tips! ❤️