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The Will To Build
by JOAN PEARSALL
Birds have as much variety in their nests
as people do in their houses. There are as
many differences in size, location, and construction
material as there are species.
Since the purpose of a nest is to serve as
a bird nursery, birds are very careful where
they put them, usually in hard to get at or
hidden places. They are expert at the art
of camouflage. Some arch over their nests
with growing vegetation. The ruby-throated
hummingbird and wood peewee cover them
with lichens, so that they seem to appear
like bumps on the tree-branch. The ovenbird
puts its nest on the forest floor and
covers it with dry leaves.
The hiding places can be almost everywhere,
from beneath a tuft of grass, as
a sparrow might choose, to the great blue
heron's in the tallest tree. The yellow
warbler picks a low bush, the black-capped
chickadee a decaying stump. The crested
flycatcher nests in a hole in a tree, and
the kingfisher in a sandbank. Where a
natural location is not easily available,
birds will adapt to man-made conveniences.
For instance, the osprey might use the
crossbar of a telegraph pole, swallows and
owls make their homes in barns, and swifts
build in chimneys. Wrens build in very
unlikely places such as in old tin cans,
the fold of a blanket hanging on a clothesline,
or even on the bumper of a car.
Most of the feathered architects are very
industrious and painstaking in their building:
the robin, ruby-throated hummingbird,
and Baltimore oriole are good examples of
this. Some are more casual-the mourning
dove just builds a loose platform of twigs,
and the killdeer only dusts out a crudely
lined hollow in the ground. For a woodpecker,
a hole in a tree serves nicely as
a place for its eggs. The cowbird is the
laziest-it not only doesn't build a nest,
but puts its eggs in another bird's nest and
leaves the raising of its young to the foster
parents.
Although birds very frequently return to
the same nesting site for many years, most
of them build a new model. Only a few
species use the same old nest year after
year. Crows and hawks often renovate and
rebuild the old home. The bald eagle "adds
a room" each year-it builds a new nest on
top of the old onel Since this bird can live
to be very old, this means they can develop
some imposing structures. One bald eagle
nest in Florida has been added to for 40
years and is now 20 feet high, 9% feet
across, and is estimated to weigh several
tons!
Most of the birds don't care too much
for neighbors and nest singly. A few that
choose to nest in colonies include purple
martins, herons, terns, gulls, and some
swallows.
The species also have their preferences
when it comes to building material. The
chipping sparrow likes to line its nest with
horsehair, the barn swallow with feathers,
the goldfinch is fond of thistledown, and
the catbird selects mostly grapevine bark.
But anything that is available can go into
these cozy masterpieces. For this allimportant
job of providing a family home,
birds are a marvelous lesson in ingenuity
and refusing to be discouraged. A fine
example is shown in this picture of a raven's
nest. It was built many years ago
during a severe drought when very little
vegetation was available. To set up housekeeping,
the determined ravens gathered
anything they could find. The result was
a work of art composed of Russian thistle,
Devil's claw, cedar bark from fence posts,
bailing wire, barbed wire, and hog wireand
a big helping of that most valuable
ingredient, perseverance.
Junior Sportsmen