A November surprise

We have a secluded rural backyard. Surrounded by trees, in full summer, it's very private. We love it. That means we also see a lot of birds. This summer, we had hummingbirds. Lots of them. They came to our feeder, and amused us with their wildly aggressive behaviour. Don't they know they're tiny?

Yesterday, when I was out on the deck, I saw an unusual round object hanging from a naked tree branch. Could it be a hummingbird nest? or maybe not a bird's nest at all....maybe it's a wasp's nest? Yikes.

Nope. Not wasps. Definitely a bird. This little nest is a thing of beauty. It hangs by delicate loops of grass from the tree branch about 5 feet off the ground. It's at the end of a flimsy branch that no predator could ever access. So clever. The nest itself is about 4 or 5 inches across and about the same deep, so the bird must be small.

I never saw the bird who built it....or maybe I did. I just never saw her in the nest or flying to or from. When I researched the nest itself, I learned it's the nest of a Red-eyed Vireo. Now, that's not a bird name I recognize, but I have seen this little guy, from time to time on the deck.

Hello! He's a Red-eyed Vireo!

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-eyed_Vireo/id

So delicate. So beautiful. I'll bet s/he didn't have to read a book or take a class to learn to build this nest. Why do we humans think we know so much?

After all, while we mess around with snow tires and frozen pipes, the Red-eyed Vireo will be lounging around the Amazon basin.