Bird Nests

There is a Nor'Easter bearing down on us. The weather folk are predicting torrential rains, dropping temperatures, some late snow and winds gusting to 40 mph.

I moved my car so it is not under any trees.

I'm going to the store shortly to get some lunch meat and bread and powdered milk. If we lose power, we can at least eat. I will also fill my car with gasoline and bring in the camping cook stove and get the sleeping bags out of the front room.

I'm also going by the blacksmith shop to see if my wool combs are ready. Ken said they called last week but I had headed off to get my alpaca fiber so wasn't able to hook up with them last Saturday.

But, while standing at my front door looking out at the yard thinking that I really should go out and cut some fresh flowers before they are FLATTENED, I noticed the birds.

The poor little things are flashing about madly grabbing up nest material. They were trying to bite off bits from some plastic yarn we used last year to tied up some plants to no avail. So I took some of the fiber trash out and scattered it about the garden and hung some from the trellis.

The finches just love the alpaca second cuts. They are stuffing their little mouths FULL of the short little tuffs of fiber and flying off to tuck in. There are some small sparrows who are after the longer fibers (the stuff that is so full of vm I can't even deal with it). I guess they figure they are getting a little grain snack to go with the lining material.

It will be interesting to examine the abandonned nests we find next Fall and Winter to learn how they used all these things.