Our Little Nest Egg

I have a whole new appreciation for the homemaking skills of birds. For our spring nature table, we tried to make a birds nest. The operative word being 'tried'. It took three days worth of outside time, and many start-overs before we had something that I could hold in only one hand without falling apart. How in the world do these little birds perform such a feat of engineering without even opposable thumbs? The project turned from a simple 'let's see if we can do this' into an obsession, and as Emma scuttled around the garden bringing me different supplies, I swear I heard a bird laughing. Eventually, we figured out that twigs and grasses have differing levels of suppleness and looked more closely at the materials we collected to find the best kinds. Thin, winding wisteria branches worked out well; Emma hypothesised that because this plant grows round and round trees, it is good at going round and round nests too. We finally got a passable framework together, and Emma found some soft grass to line the nest. It now sits proudly on our nature table, holding three beautiful wooden eggs, hand-made by a friend for last year's Easter egg hunt.