Nests!

Nests come in all sizes and descriptions, much like the creatures that build them.  

You probably think of birds when you think of nests and so do I.  

Compared to Ruby's 'nest', which she made from my coat when it fell off the doorknob and she arranged to her liking, most bird's nests are quite amazing.  Here's a wonderful nest made by Baltimore Orioles:

It was so well made that even after a Cedar Waxwing stole some grass from it, it was still sturdy.

The Waxwing thief took the piece of grass and put it in its own nest, here....

Some other nests I watched this spring included a Blue Jay nest, very high in a tree near our house.  The only reason I discovered it was that some Crows were attacking it one day and I heard the ruckus and investigated.

The Blue Jays must have decided to move somewhere else because after that day I didn't see them anymore.  If you look carefully at the next photo you can see a Blue Jay in the nest.  As I said, the nest was very high, and to get a photo I had to wait til the wind blew the leaves so I could see it!

Though I couldn't see into the next nest at all, I had fun watching a pair of White-breasted Nuthatches bring pieces of bark to this tree cavity.  Later, I watched them bring many caterpillars to their hidden nest.

I think maybe Wood Ducks nested in this dead tree, but I was never able to see them enter or exit.  

Though Wood Ducks are very tricky to find when they are nesting, other cavity nesters are not so shy -- such as the Bluebirds, Wrens, and Tree Swallows that use nest boxes in our yard.  Here's a look into a Tree Swallow nest:

Their close relatives, the Barn Swallows, build a different kind of nest... almost entirely from mud:

While many birds do a lot of work to make their nests, there are others who don't... such as the Killdeer.   The perfect nest for them is on the ground, either just scraping a slight hollow in the soil or arranging the mulch into a little depression. 

Thanks to Ruby, I got to watch another nest in the ground, made by this rabbit:

I wrote about Ruby and the rabbits in this post-- click here if you missed it.

So, I thought you might like an update.  This is the last photo I took of the baby bunnies before they left the nest:

There were 5 of them-- tightly packed in the nest, on June 10th.  The next day they were gone.

We still have a second brood of House Wrens in one of our yard boxes, but other than that, most birds are finished raising babies for this year.  (Now it's fun to watch what I call the 'teenage' birds!)

While it's lots of fun to watch nesting birds and we've had a good year for it, what about the nests that were too well hidden and the birds were too secretive for us to find?  That is one thing to look forward to winter for... those secret nests will be revealed!