New neighbors!

For a while there, I thought they had abandoned their building project. They had started with a nice foundation, then a storm came and I didn’t see them for a couple of weeks. But they came back, and they have been busy building one of the most indestructable structures known in nature: A magpie nest. Floor, walls and roof, tightly woven together from twigs, characterizes the home of breeding magpies.

I caught my new neighbors busy working some longish twigs into their ever-growing nest this morning (compression sucks):

I’m told that if they drop a twig, they won’t pick it up and use it again.

I am delighted to have the magpies this close! (I may not be after the neighborhood cats discover the nest, though.)