Nest Crafters

My sister lives on a picturesque ranch in eastern South Dakota.  It is beautiful prairie country with acres of grass, towering cottonwoods down by the slough, and grassy fence lines that provide cover for pheasants.  They have a pasture of horses for rodeo and pleasure.  The horses have provided an unexpected resource for certain birds in the area–horsehair from tails and manes.  The horses flick their tails and rub against fence posts, and the hair gets caught in the fence hardware.  The birds use the hair to construct their nests.  My sister found these nests in the yard after a stormy, windy day.

The nests were tiny–1 3/4″  to 2 3/4″ outside diameter and only 1″ to 1 3/4″ high.  We don’t know what birds made them, but I consider them ‘nest crafters’ instead of ‘nest builders.’  Even having been blown out of their tree or shrub of cover, they were still intact as near-perfect circles of woven horsehair.  I think how hard it would be to make a nest like that using two hands and ten fingers–and these little birds did it with just their beaks!  I wonder how many trips they made to find the horse hair.  I wonder how many hairs it took for each nest.  I wonder how long it took to craft that soft, yet tough dwelling.  Each nest had some plant material in the cup–cedar and pine twigs–making a unique place to lay and incubate eggs, hatch the brood, and feed and care for the babies until they were ready to leave the nest.

We, as parents, are nest crafters, too.  We use the resources available to us to craft a dwelling and family life in which to raise our young brood.  Whereas the birds take weeks and months to prepare for and raise their young chicks, we invest months and years and decades of time and energy and love.  Each family creates a unique place in which to grow.  Sometimes the storms of life may blow things away, and we have to re-build, re-group, or re-craft our abode or relationships the best we can.  It takes instinct, knowledge, work, trial and error, and tons of love to craft a soft, yet resilient family dwelling for our kids, knowing that one day they will leave the nest and fly away.

Nest photos by Dawn Gehrke