A Tale Of Two Nests

I found the funniest bird nest the other day.  I'm used to seeing wool and horse hair in the nests around here, but holy moly, look at all this!

In case the labels are hard to read, this bird used wool, horse hair, felt scraps, chicken feathers, baling twine, one of B. Willard's gray/brown curls and a couple hunks of Hank hair.  This has to be from last spring as Hank hasn't started shedding yet.  It blew down in the big storm the other night, along with this robin (I think) nest.

The builder had used wool to anchor the nest to some branches.  It held so well that the branch broke before the nest did.  I'm sorry little birds :-/.  So much hard work down the drain.

Almost all the nests I find on our farm are constructed at least partly with wool.  Some birds use it for structure, some to anchor it to the tree, some to pad out the inside to keep their babies warm and dry.  I love it :-).

Last spring we assembled some bird nest builder kits but I never got around to marketing them.  We designed a stamp, found the muslin bags at a shop here in town, stamped and stuffed and tagged...and then Blossom showed up and I lost focus.  I was planning on advertising them at Christmas...and Maisie showed up. I think I need more practice focusing with a baby lamb, eh?  ;-)

"Wool Nest Builder - Birds love to add bits of string, flowers, horse hair and especially wool to their nests.  Drape tufts of all natural (and washed!) wool on nearby branches and watch for fleece lined nests in the spring."

I've seen several blogs talking about birds and nests and the simple and not so simple beauty of spring.  None of these nests have any wool! 

If you'd like to start seeing some wool in your bird's nests, leave a comment telling either your favorite bird or the birds most common to your part of the world.  On Friday I'll draw for a couple winners and get a Wool Nest Builder kit out to you right away.

If you'd like to purchase a kit without waiting to see how your luck is going to run, just drop me an email. For the rest of April (which is flying by :-o), free shipping (for nest builder kits only) to blog readers!