Abandoned

Over the spring and summer, birds built several nests in the wisteria that engulfs the front of our house. This pleased me endlessly, and when the baby birds were born, I felt like the proverbial proud auntie with a bit of nightclub bouncer thrown in. I skulked in the shrubbery and shooed away the neighbour's cats. Naturally, we couldn't prune back the wizzy at the required time in the autumn because the nests were occupied. An excellent excuse, should you ever need one. Never mind that the front of our house was beginning to look like a feral Ent from Lord of the Rings. Then winter thundered in early, elbowing autumn away, and we promptly forgot all about pruning or indeed doing anything else outoors.

Today, a balmy minus 1 Celsius, was dry and sunny enough for T to do some wizzy wrangling with ladder and loppers. I wisely chose to direct operations from indoors, issuing semaphore instructions through the living room window. T discovered the littlest nest had fallen out and landed in a flowerbed. Here it is, sitting on the stepladder. It's woven mainly from moss and horsehair, lined with with a few bird feathers and bits of coloured string. A thing of beauty and a harbinger of spring.


A closer look.