news, news,

Okay,
The bushtit's nest in Esquimalt has been stolen. I will try to put another one up this week. For the record - it is ILLEGAL to steal any nest, .... even a fake one.

Also - there is a small mistake on the map to the Anna's hummingird nest. Swan Lake Rd. is actually supposed to be Swan Street.

Also, the nest project will be on display next week at the Fifty Fifty art gallery on Douglas Street in Victoria. There will be some outdoor nests installed too =)

The Nest project at U-vic

The Nest project will be on display at the U-Vic grad show April 20th to the 28th.

Maps to the outdoor nests.

Here are some maps to the outdoor nests. Some might be hard to see so I have tied green ribbons to the trees so that you can locate them more easily. The Chipping sparrow nest is not attached to a tree, but placed in a bush. Happy nest hunting!

Silence the ornamental pheasants

So Chris left me a message about the pigeon's nests he wanted me to build. Actually they are mourning doves - which apparently build their nests on top of the nests of other birds. So that means double the nests... I wonder how much I should charge him. He also wanted to know if I had any idea how to "silence" his neighbor's ornamental pheasants. I am not sure what he means by this but it is hilarious to speculate. I refuse to kill pheasants for money... even though I am broke and would like to buy a nest cam...
The nest cam idea is a new one for me. These have been popular on the internet lately and think it might be interesting to try. My number one source of nest cam info is linked at the bottom of the page. In his experience it sometimes takes a year for bird's to warm up to the idea artifical nests.

Mystery Sparrow's nest

So I thought I had the technique for creating cup nests pretty much figured out - but apparently I don't. I discovered this nest at the Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary. The materials appear to be yellow moss and regurgitated toilet paper. I'm told it was made by "some kind of sparrow". I can't figure out exactly how its made... it's really driving me crazy.

dead porpoise news and wool offerings

I felt guilty about taking the bushtits' fuzz so I left some sheep's wool out for them. Blue, purple and grey. I am wondering if they will prefer a certain color. It'll be great of they choose blue.
I e-mailed one of the Teaching Assistants in my environmental studies class about the dead porpoise. She forwarded my e-mail to a colleague who apparently collects and studies the carcasses of dolphins and whales. She wanted to know all about this particular carcass so I told her where to find it. Today I recieved an e-mail telling me that the carcass was too decayed to study, but thanks anyway. Now the carcass has been removed, most likely by the city - but there is still an indentation where it was.

2 Bushtits nests and a dead porpoise

Yesterday I went jogging in Esquimalt and I saw two nests and a dead porpoise. I think the nests must be built by bushtits. Today I went back to photograph them and study them more. I noticed that they were made of a particular fuzz that looked like cottonwood pollen, which is strange because it's too early for cottonwood pollen. This fuzz was everywhere, stuck to the trees etc. I followed the trail of fuzz into a wooded area and found some people camping there. I realized that the fuzz was coming from an old sleeping bag that had been discarded by these people. Some people were still there sleeping so I did not go closer to get a picture. I did take some fuzz so I could begin building a bushtit's nest though.

Anna's hummingbird starter nest

This nest is made of sheep's wool, cattail fluff and moss. It is not completed since I read that hummingbirds will often lay eggs on the platform of a just-started nest and then build up around the eggs that they've laid.