Nest by artist Benjamin Verdonck on a sky scraper in Rotterdam
This summer has been highlighted by a Nature program which played itself out on our front porch. In June a robin took over my window box, built a nest and laid four beautiful eggs.
By mid June the eggs had hatched, and four baby birds were gulping down large and juicy bugs.
Eventually they grew actual feathers, got too big for their home and pushed each other out of the nest. We witnessed four awkward, but successful launchings.
After they left, I got a new geranium plant to replace the dead pansies. Barely two days went by, a new robin arrived, and a new nest got started. Soon the nest looked finished but the mother had disappeared. I thought, “She's gone to find a quieter neighborhood, I'll take this nest to photograph and paint.” (an Audubon no-no, by the way).
Later that same day I went back to water my plant, and there, in the dirt, was a bright blue egg. Shamed...I ran back...got the nest and put the egg inside. ( OK.. by Audubon, by the way). Later in the week there was a second egg. Soon the mother robin got used to me going in an out the front door, a midwife to her eggs. One day, one was missing, nothing on the porch or ground or anywhere near the nest. Two days later, while weeding in the driveway I discovered a half empty shell.
Forensics tells me it was probably a raccoon. Our garbage can had recently been rifled. Little prying fingers had managed to lift the lid despite bungee cords wrapped around all three handles, top and sides. Fortunately the remaining egg stayed safe and eventually hatched a pathetically runtish bird.
It struggled to raise its heavy head. Despite the lack of brothers and sisters to “egg” things along that bird too eventually fell out of the nest, found it had feet, and stumbled across the driveway into the woods. The mother Robin was chirping madly from the tree tops.
Both she and my psychic abilities tell me all five birds are doing well.
What's fun about these events is how things keep showing up in your life. When I was teaching one of my more popular lessons was to make a nest. Students had to identify their surroundings, their persona as a bird and make an assemblage/nest. I got some great results and had a lot of fun myself researching the art and craft of bird nests. Constructing a nest is no small task as you can see by the pictures below. Interspersed with bird factoids are also pictures of artists' creations I discovered on the web.
Award winning tight weave
Large Nest by the Hammerskop
Dutch design studio BureaudeBank created a nest of 300 individual silver twigs that hold together much the same way twigs of a real nest do. Designed for a client needing 300 business gifts, each twig symbolizes an important business relationship: if any twig is removed, the nest will fall apart.
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a Minimalist
Bird nest by two Zebra Finches presented as art by Bjorn Braun
(Appropriation perhaps?)
