the nesting imperative

For some people, the harbingers of spring are little green shoots poking out of the partially thawed ground. For me, it is another miracle of nature that signals the coming change of season, but it takes place in my open air art studio, right off the kitchen.

Every year at this time, our breakfasts are enlivened by the darting back and forth of little brown finches outside the enormous louvered windows facing the studio. The birds are terribly busy refurbishing a double decker nest on the lower and middle shelves of a antique kitchen cabinet. So old and exposed to the elements that its vanilla yellow paint has achieved a natural crackle effect never to be matched by faux technique, the cabinet hangs on the exterior wall of our home, origianlly intended merely as a convenient spot to store paint, gesso, glitter glue, sequins and the like.

The two slightly warped doors of the cabinet each hold several panels of glass, and during the first year in our home, when I occasionally felt inspired to tidy up the studio, I would force them shut and fasten them with a dangly, painted metal hook. The rest of the time, I left them slightly ajar and they would slowly swing to a fully open position in the breeze. This gave the birds easy access to the shelves inside, and evidently, they found or created enough space behind a lean to of plastic palettes to build a suitable nursery. Now, the cabinet doors hang open permanently, allowing the easy return of the nest refurbishment crew.

As winter ends, the cabinet becomes a veritable condominium for finches. I look forward to this event each year and delight in the various stages of the bird life cycle that we are privileged to witness so very close up.

This time, as we watch the renovation and refeathering, Isaac asks me if he and his brother Sam could also build a nest for themselves, because it looks like such fun to build and so very cozy inside. I tell him that his father and I had already provided them a cozy nest: their bedroom.

I explain that this is part of nature. "The Mommy bird has something inside her," I say, "that makes her start bringing bits of fluff to a nest before her eggs are ready to hatch. Whether a Mommy is a bird, a monkey or a person," I tell Isaac, "this is what we are programmed to do. Whenever one of you babies was on the way," I say, "I would be overtaken by an irresistable impulse to order new bedding and repaint the furniture."

"But what about the Daddy bird?", Isaac asks, as I knew he would. "The Daddy bird is programmed to help," I tell him. "And your Daddy would put the crib together for the new baby." We stand together in the kitchen, watching the pair of finches dart busily back and forth, in and out of the cabinet, working in what appears to be perfect harmony. I silently marvel at the lack of squawking on the part of the Mommy bird. Either she thinks her mate is doing a perfect job helping with the nest, I reason, or else, she is just too busy using her beak to haul and arrange feathers to have time to stop and criticize him. Constructively, of course.

Soon, it will soon get very noisy out there. The birds - both parent and offspring - are very vocal once the babies arrive, and I'm looking forward to that stage as well. I'll take and post pictures of the nests as soon as the coast is clear.