Found

I was about to prune a small boxwood in the garden and wondered why it had bits of dried grasses draped about it. Peering into the top I found this tiny nest and eggs. The eggs were about an inch long. Seems like I won't be pruning there for a while. Does any one know what bird laid these, best I can tell you is that the mother is a small brown bird; a nuthatch?

Yesterdays garden treasure

Hope x 4 x 5

Just after the tsunami and earthquakes stuck Japan, Donna Watson wrote a very beautiful and moving blog post called "Surviving on Hope". In it she talks about how people all over the world, but especially Japan, struggle to recover their home, family and community in the face of devastation. And in the post she uses the image of a nest, as a place of safety, trust, home. After watching the dreadful news from Somalia, of drought, starvation and migration, I watched the robin who has taken up residence on our front porch, lay her 4th batch of eggs this year. Her first nest and eggs got knocked down by mistake when the fellows were repairing the eaves trough. The next day she was rebuilding [in a safer location]. And we have watched the little ones learning to fly across the rafters. J. went out yesterday to start scraping to repaint and found the nest full again, for the fourth time. This time with 5 eggs.

the 4th batch of robin's eggs

Momma  Robin