Outside a friend’s house stands a large acacia tree, its branches loaded down with baubles of weaver bird’s nests. Each Spring it is filled with manic chattering and a flurry of activity as new nests are woven next to the old. Intricate confections of long grass, twisted and turned to make a hanging nest, its entrance at the bottom, yet with a secure inner chamber that safely holds the eggs. The chatter grows more intense as the nestlings hatch and must be fed, quieting only at night.
Below is a treasure trove of discarded nests (last years outmoded fashions), bright sky-blue eggshells that seem too small to have held a baby bird, and the occasional tragedy of an ugly bald chick with bulbous eyes and tiny wing buds, fallen from the nest or pushed by competitive siblings.
For an hour the girls collected egg shells, feathers, held a funeral and absorbed the essence of spring.
The nests came home and provided an opportunity for the toy twitterers to hatch a family.
Youngest's toy bird finds a new home and raises a family
My son's drawings from his school book. They've been studying local animals and birds.
