Nesting

 Have you ever had a book from your childhood that was read and loved so much,  that you realise it has had a profound impact in shaping your now adult views?  

The Best Nest by PD Eastman was mine. It was a Dr Seuss beginner reader but I loved it. It had drama, comedy, disaster, sadness and ultimately a happy ending when Mrs Bird realises the nest they had at the beginning was perfect the whole time. (Even as a five year old I understood the moral of the story was to find contentment with what you have.) 

It is because of this book that whenever I see birds building their nests I think of Mr and Mrs bird with their pink and blue hats on and I imagine the drama that is playing out in their relationship as they set about building a home to raise their young.  In my mind, they are personified. 

In our home in South Africa, a weaverbird nest was built hanging off a branch that tangled just out of reach from our trampoline. With weaverbirds, it is the male that builds the nest. Hours and hours using blades of grass he would weave and toil, tying knots with his beak until a basket-like structure hung from the branch. Then he would hang from it, basically running open homes for females to come and check out his nest, hoping one would approve and then move in for the breeding season.  

One day I came out and saw the nest destroyed and the trampoline covered in debris. I blamed my boys for jumping too high and hitting it.  They explained to me  “It was the weaver bird mum. He ripped it up himself, we watched him.” Sure enough, they were right. over that nesting season, we watched that poor guy build nest after nest trying to get a female to be his mate.  It never happened. They likely thought eggs hanging over a trampoline of rowdy boys was not a wise real estate purchase. I wished I could have communicated that to him to help him in his quest.  “It’s not your building buddy, with the ladies it's all about location, location, location.”

It is spring in New Zealand and I am watching another drama playing out. Swallows who mate for life and return to the same nesting site each year. Two years ago they built their first nest in our garden shed. They made a mess, pooping over all the bikes and giving everyone a heck of a fright when you entered the shed.  They would scare and swoop over your heads like bats to escape.

That couple returned the next year. This year Marcus saw them the day they turned up and perched on our fig tree. “Not this year you won’t” he muttered from the kitchen window. Then set to work hanging netting over the opening, blocking their way in and out.  They hung around for a few days, trying to find ways in, but then they changed tack. 

This morning I heard them from our bedroom. I walked out onto our deck to see they had almost completed a new nest, under the eve in the corner of our heat pump pipe. They had been busy.  So here I sit watching them come and go with bits of mud in their mouth building their nest.  It is going to mean our deck is going to be covered in bird poo and we will be woken by little chirps of baby birds in the small hours. But there is no way I can destroy that nest and move them on. 

In my mind, they are Mr and Mrs bird. She has given him the conditions of where she wants to live and he is doing his best to provide. For my part I am going to be the best neighbour to make sure they get that happy ending. Even if it does mean an unusable deck covered in bird poo for a season.

What was the childhood book you had that has you thinking a certain way about things now?