The NESTING Series Resurrected! Part Six: Type Nesting!

Found one of these images on Pinterest and couldn't resist reposting. I love when birds build their nests in odd places. A mess of twigs and other detritus fashioned into a home nestled underneath the eaves of roofs, in the corners of rafters, is something I always delight in discovering. But this has got to be, by far, the best photo collection of bird nests in unusual places I've seen—each one settled into the letters of various street signs. I wonder, what makes for a better ledge to build upon—the arm of an S or the crux of an X?

When clicking through the photos I recognized that a lot of the birds appeared to be of the same variety. Naturally, I Googled "black face city bird" and found out it is the common House Sparrow.

- Cathleen 

[Images courtesy of Type Nesting Tumblr]

The NESTING Series, Times Five: Tent Nests

The latest chapter in The Nesting Series: the beautiful, the diaphanous Eastern Tent Caterpillar Nests!

The Eastern Tent Caterpillars start building their nest as soon as they hatch from their eggs. Created in the crotch of a tree and oriented with the broadest side of the structure facing the morning sun, the caterpillars spend the entire larval period constructing and expanding the nest to accommodate their growth. 

Photo from The Flying Kiwi

Photo from A Prairie Haven

Photo from Allan Bovee Photography

Photo from BioKIDS

The caterpillars feed three times a day on the leaves of the tree, often denuding all of its foliage while they reside in its branches. Each time they leave the nest to eat, they add another layer to the outside of the nest by walking back and forth over its surface, leaving a trail of silk as they go. As the new layers of silk contract, they pull away from the previous layer creating gaps where the caterpillars bask in the sun between feeding and building. 

Photo from Henderson State University

When fully grown, the caterpillars leave the nest and form individual cocoons elsewhere, transforming into adult moths about two weeks later. Mating and egg-laying typically occur the same day the moths emerge from their cocoons, with the females dying from exhaustion soon thereafter.     

Photo from A Prairie Haven

- Cathleen 

The NESTING Series, Part Four: Edible Nests

Today I bring you the next chapter of my Nesting Series: Edible Nests!

Image from ANET

The edible-nest swiftlet is a bird native to South-east Asia whose name says it all; the nests they build are a delicacy in China, highly prized (and priced) for their supposed health benefits. Constructed by the male of the species, the nests are made from interwoven regurgitated strands of the bird’s saliva, solidifying into half-cup shaped nests that are attached to cave walls, ceilings, and in the eaves of roofs.

Recently in Indonesia there’s been a big business in building brightly colored “birdhouses” where owners blast birdcalls over a loud speaker to attract the swiftlets to roost inside.

Photo courtesy of The New York Times

The nests are built in a human-scale house that has anything a bird could want—bird feeders, birdbaths, and protection from predators. Even air-conditioning (of sorts) in the form of misters that simulate the cool, cave-like environment the birds are used to. 

Once collected, the nests sell for upwards of $1,000 a pound. They are dissolved in water to make a gelatinous cure-all soup that can purportedly do everything from strengthening one’s immune system to stimulating the libido and helping new mothers regain their figures after childbirth. And how!

I don’t know about you guys, but if “regurgitated saliva” didn’t get your mouth watering, I bet “gelatinous” sure did!  

- Cathleen

 

The NESTING Series: Part Deux: Bees

I know I promised it would be presented here every three weeks until I’d worn the topic out, and I know you were counting down the days until it’s arrival in your virtual mailbox. But when I was all set to launch into the newest subject last week, the wedding of Les and Gay went and blew all of my best-laid plans out of the water. That wedding was such an awesome brat. SO here we are, a week late and a holler short, with segment two in my miniseries on nests: BEES!

But not just any bee. There’s a certain type of bee that lives alone and lines its nests with a probably not delicious mud-and-flower-petal sandwich. Yes, scientists call this nest a “flower sandwich.” But this ain’t no Dagwood. The bee bites the petals off flowers (like the one above), and uses them to line its nest, a shallow hole in the ground, where it will lay its egg in a puddle of nectar and pollen. The pretty petals are held together with mud that hardens and protects the growing larva from intruders. These lovely little husks are soft cradles for a baby bee.

What’s crazy is the bee only lives for about a year, 10 months of which are the period spent underground as a larva, tucked inside the petal sandwich, sleeping! Then once it decides it’s time to claw its way above ground, it spends the last two months of its life looking for a place to lay its egg and build its nest, living only to create new life, living solely for its progeny. 

A while ago I stumbled upon these photographs from National Geographic. Apparently nests by the same species were discovered in Turkey and Iran on the same day, but the difference was that the nests from Turkey were made with yellow, pink, blue, and purple petals, and nests from Iran were made with only purple flowers. The scientists were confounded, wondering whether the difference in color choice was because of genetics or population. I think it’s probably more a question of just what’s in the area. You can only choose from what’s available. Case cracked!

- Cathleen

The NESTING Series: Part One

This is the first segment in what will be a regular miniseries on NESTS. I started writing a post covering all of the most interesting branches of this fascinating subject, and it quickly began morphing into a dissertation of epic proportions. I instead decided to break things up into several shorter bite-sized posts that will be presented every three weeks until my nesting knowledge is thoroughly exhausted. Right now I think I’ve got about 7 posts in me. Maybe 8. So get ready. 

Admittedly, I am obsessed with birds. I just counted and we have no less than 34 bird decorations perched on surfaces throughout the house. That number is rather shocking, actually. Especially considering I did a major thinning out of my collection after Micky and I first moved in together and he turned to me and said, “Wow. There really are a lot of birds in here.”

So now that you know I’m a bona fide bird lady, you can probably imagine my excitement over a review I read recently in the New York Times for a book called Avian Architecture: How Birds Design, Engineer, and Build by Peter Goodfellow.

According to my online research (I've already put this bad boy on my Christmas list), the book provides 300 detailed step-by-step illustrations of the nest-building process for over 100 species, breaking down the different kinds of nests by type: scrape, hole, platform, aquatic, mud, mound, cup or dome, and hanging nests. I was interested to learn that scrape nests, probably the variety that takes the least amount of effort to make, are not much more than a dimple in the ground, without any soft lining, and no real concern with protection from predators. Then, of course, there are the iconic cup-shaped nests that we all know and love:  

I’ve always been fascinated by birds like the Ruby-throated Hummingbird for the way they use gathered cobwebs as the glue that holds the tufts of dandelion and thistle down together in their nests: 

This haughty little fellow was photographed by the Delaware Nature Society

An insider's view found on Le Petit Cadeau

So not only are these lovely flights of fancy decked out in beautiful feathers with their own distinctive markings (there’s something startlingly beautiful about a pigeon when you see that flash of iridescent feathers as they swivel their necks, am I right, folks?), but amazingly each species is also an ingenious designer and constructor of a perfect, unique home to keep their burgeoning young safe and warm.

Next up in the NESTING series: BEEEEES!

- Cathleen