Horsehair bird nest

I decided to prune my white Weeping Cherry tree this weekend. I'm probably a little late, however the ground is still frozen solid and it's still snowing here. *sigh* What a conundrum! Do I prune the tree and the grapes now, or do I let them go for the year? They seem to be starting to 'wake up' but everything is still frozen solid. Decisions, decisions.....

So, I went ahead and did the pruning. Now that the tree is bare of leaves and trimmed a bit I could get to all the debris near the trunk. I found several nests. The larger ones were mostly made with long, curly Sebastopol goose feathers. There was one tiny little nest that could only be a small birds nest. 

I pulled it out in one piece and looked at it close. there were lots of hairs in there. Mostly fine and blond....probably mine. There were also some really thick black hairs and some thick blond hairs. I can only assume they came from Jack and Moose. Jack has a beautiful black mane and lives next door....his pen is probably about 2 acre lengths away from  the tree. (I judge distance by football field lengths, sorry! lol) 

I had almost forgot about Moose who had come to stay with Jack for a few months last spring. He was a beautiful tan color with a blonde mane and tail and white blaze. He was only there for a short while, but apparently it was during nest building season!

I can't get over how tiny and perfect the nest is! I love seeing the birds and put out feeders every spring through early fall. We have so many varieties of flowers in the yard that they can always find one to drink from.  

We get a few different varieties of Hummingbirds, but not really knowing the difference I can't tell you what types....just that they look different. They move too darn fast to tell more then that! I can't wait to see them again this year!

~L


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