Nature’s Weavers
It’s been breezy lately, which means empty birds’ nests are falling from the trees.
I don’t know what kind of bird made this nest. It fell out of a young chinquapin tree in the Hill Country.
It’s about 3 inches across, and 3 inches high.
The detail shows the delicate grass stems.
Carolina wrens will build a nest anywhere. I have found one in an old coffee can full of nails. This one was built on a pair of old river shoes and some vulture feathers that were on a shelf in the shed. There are heaps of tree catkins all over it, but there is a nest in there under them.
This is a mockingbird nest. There are at least four close to the house.
This is a different mockingbird nest.
OK, this is not in my yard. This is an osprey nest we saw at Lake Houston on Fourth of July. I would estimate it as at least 6 feet across.
I’m always amazed at the variety and strength of these structures.
Wow. I’ve never seen a mockingbird nest before. I’m impressed by the size of the sticks woven into that! We have a mockingbird that sits on the phone pole outside our house. One night Husband and I sat up until the wee hours listening to him sing. I tried to keep count of all the different sounds I heard him make, but finally stopped at 102. He never repeated a song. Love a mockingbird.
I used to live an hour and a half south of where I live now, and the mockingbirds there were much more vocal and had a different repertoire than the ones around here, but I have never heard one with so many sounds! That would be great to listen to. There was one who repeated about 8 sounds, including his imitation of a chuck-will’s-widow and a car alarm.
I’d love to hear the car alarm, lol. When I counted up the sounds he made, I thought for sure that I had to be wrong, but I’ve since read that mockingbirds can have upwards of 400 songs, with the 50-100 being common. The difficulty, especially at night, is in differentiating whether you are hearing a mockingbird or a catbird. I’ve sometimes wondered if it’s a catbird we listened to, because they go from one sound to the next without repeating, while a mockingbird will usually sing one song a couple times before moving on. But without the visual ID, I don’t know.
We’re supposed to have catbirds here, but I have only seen one in my lifetime, and that was on a bird walk with an expert that found all the birds for me!
One of our local columnists wrote one time that mockingbirds speak Spanish – “Conchita! Conchita!” – and that always makes me smile when I hear them.
What a great post! Thank you so much for sharing. I really enjoyed seeing all those beautiful nests. It’s so interesting that these are temporary homes. Next year, they start all over again with new twigs and blades of grass.
Yes, and it’s interesting to me to see what places they choose. Last year I had doves in the pear tree, this year it was a mockingbird. I also had a mockingbird build a nest right in the dog’s kennel!