Friday, June 13, 2014

Birds Nest

Jean and I we out thinning apples a few days ago, not a lot of apples this season, but that's another story.  We often come across birds nests in our apple trees, robins, sparrows and swallows.  But we came across this nest, one we have never seen before.  Often bird nests rest on branches in the tree but this one was woven around a  Y shaped branch with no bottom support with what looked like spider webbing and the body had wasp nest paper incorporated into the nest.   At the time we initially saw the nest it had two eggs, when we went back to take an image of the nest it had one more egg plus a cow bird egg.  Cow birds parasitize the nests of other birds to get the mother to raise the cow bird's offspring. Since the cow bird offspring grows quickly it often out competes the host bird's offspring.

We did some research to identify the nest and eggs, not wanting to harass the mother. Our best guess is that it is a Red-Eyed Vireo .  Most of the pieces fit including the use of wasp paper in the nest.  One item that didn't fit is their preference to nest in forest canopies.  I guess if you stretch the definition of forest canopies nesting at five feet in a couple of acres of six foot trees would qualify.   If you think I have it wrong with the identification please let us know.