How, you'll be asking yourself, did I enter into possession of this perfectly square chickadee nest? Well, it's like this. I noticed Saturday evening that the parent chickadees were no longer visiting the nest. Of course I feared the worst. But then, as I thought about it, it seemed more likely that I had miscalculated when the birds were born, and that they had simply fledged and moved on -- as turned out to be the case when I opened up the birdhouse this afternoon.
The nest was clean and empty, except for one unhatched egg and a few droppings. As you can see, it's mostly made of moss and vegetable fibers on the top. Underneath was a soft pillow made up mostly, it looked to me, of dryer lint and cat hair. It's all about local sourcing.
And then there were the mites. After I finished handling this stuff, I noticed my hands were covered with minute, almost microscopic mites. I hope I washed them all off.
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