Households in Every Tree

This is the perfect time of year to search for bird nests, those wee little households nestled and hidden deep within trees and shrubs. Before all the trees leaf out, the boys and I decided to go on a nest hunt one recent morning. We grabbed our binoculars and the camera, and off into the yard we went.

Our hunt was somewhat successful ...  no nests were spotted in the trees, but at left is a partial one we discovered on the ground. We found it underneath our big evergreen tree, othewise known, fondly, as Birdy.

Birdy is huge and the birds love its wide branches; the area underneath is spacious yet sheltered and we hang most of our feeders under here. And the best part of all is Birdy is right beside our dining room, against a wall of windows. We do our table work there, and many's a day we find ourselves just watching the windows ... there's always so much to see.

Last year we were thrilled to discover a robin pair building their nest right outside one of these windows ~ but within a week or so, even after careful construction and long time spent on the nest, the robins gave up and moved on. I have since read that nests built near feeders will be abandoned due to the distraction of the busy feeding area.   

Long story short, we think the builders of the nest pictured above gave up and moved out!

In the meantime, we have been collecting bits of stuff to add to our nesting box which we hung off the potting shed. As you can see we made it out of an empty (and washed) milk carton. We cut a large section out from the bottom on one side and filled it with bits of materials that the birds might find useful while building their homes ~ yarn, string, hair, dryer lint ...

And, in a hopeful gesture, we hung a window-view bird house off the back of our house ~ it's not too close to the feeders, and yet a stone's throw from the nesting materials. Now all we can do is sit back and watch. :)