The Nest

Since Covid restrictions took control of my life, I've spent a lot of time in the garden and in recent months I've been working on taking better photos of the birds that visit me there. There aren't as big a variety as I'd like, but they give me something to do from time to time. I first wrote about them last November after taking what is to date my best photo of a bird in flight.

That bird was just visiting but we have some that set up home in our garden for a while. Among those is a strange little weaver bird which keeps constructing nests, then demolishing them and starting new ones. Here he is hard at work constructing one of his early nests in August 2021.

Initially I wondered what happened to all the nests he built. I thought the wind had blown them away, or that some other species of bird was trying to chase him away, but a friend told me that his strange behaviour is normal for the species. However it was only recently that I witnessed him demolishing his most recent nest. Unfortunately I was unable to get an uncluttered view of him in action. But I did get a couple of shots of the half-demolished nest when my presence chased him away.

This was a pretty straight forward view, which I nearly entered for DPChallenge's Wabi Sabi challenge.

In the end I decided this one was more interesting.

He finished the demolition after I went inside and seems to have no plans to build another nest on that bush.