Nests, Old and New

I was unable to create a poem on "birds" two Poetry Mondays ago, so I'm taking it as the theme for this post instead.

Birds make their nests in both leaf-bearing and evergreen trees -- but only the leaf-bearing trees reveal the secrets in their branches each year. What is well-hidden in the summer becomes visible in the other three seasons.

My walking circuit is not a big one, but there are several nests from other years evident along the way.

Nest number one:

Far . . .

. . . and near. It was a breezy day which accounts for both the blurriness and the trailing bits going sideways.

Nest number two:

Far . . .

. . . and near.

Nest number three:

Far . . .

. . . and near.

As for new nests, a crow couple has built one in an evergreen tree that borders the back of our house lot.

It's interesting to watch their comings and goings. Sometimes they're both hidden in the branches where the nest is. Sometimes they're both hanging out nearby. But most of the time when I see them, one is arriving for duty and then the other leaves for a break. The one who's arriving caws to announce his or her presence, after which the one going on break bursts out of the greenery with what I can only describe as visible relief.

I remember feeling like that when we were raising little kids too.

It's not that we don't love our children, or that we are tired of them. It's just that we all need a break now and then.

Here's the happy frazzled couple:

And here's a video of one of them diligently working at the new nest (middle of frame) (warning: all you can see is the crow's tail, but on the bright side, it's a short video):

These were taken about a month ago. It took awhile for the crows to build the nest. At first I could see them breaking twigs off larger branches that had fallen during the winter. They'd hold the branch with their feet and wrench off the twigs, holding a half dozen or so at a time in their beaks. Then they'd fly to our deck railing, rearrange them using the railing as a sort of table top, just like a person squaring a pile of paperwork, then fly into the evergreen to add them to the nest.

They did much the same for grass additions to the nest, plucking dead strands of grass from the lawn until they had a beakfull (is that not a word? autocorrect doesn't like it), then flying to the railing to rearrange it into a better order, then flying to the nest, and -- one presumes -- working it into the sticks.

We had a storm last week that brought wind and slushy snow, and I worried about those crows and their possibly egg-filled nest.

This is how our back yard looked after the snow:

It doesn't look like much snow, does it? It was turning to water as it hit the ground. But, on my car, it piled up so much I had to clear it off repeatedly when going for groceries and to work.

And it was cold enough to form ice on the branches - can you see it below, on the two branches that make a sideways "v" in the middle of the photo?

Far . . .

. . . and near.

So I was a bit worried about Mr. and Mrs. Crow. Would they decide their tree was stuck in winter and move to another tree that might be located in spring instead?

Happily, they did not. I've since see them to-and-fro-ing in the back yard and feel reasonably sure their household is still operating. I'm hoping to hear, and see, baby crows in the fullness of time.

Along with the crows, we've also had some returning finch sightings, along with the chickadees who've stayed through the winter. And the robins have been in full voice with their spring songs.

More signs of spring to come in the next post .......