Feather nest

We cleaned out the nesting boxes today. Dave built these years ago, and we have them on each end of the barn, on the light poles in both orchards, and on the fence outside our bedroom windows. The one on the north end of the barn was stuffed full, and the nest was amazing. It's completely made of feathers, held together with blond horse hair. Looks like this pair of birds found their nesting materials next door on the Evans’ farm. They have exotic birds in an outside flight cage, and they also have a Palomino horse. The peacock feathers probably came from the big new house on the old horse farm; they brought a flock of peacocks with them when they moved in.

I carefully extracted the nest from the rest of the debris in the box, then sorted through the feathers and saved the best for the collection I keep in my mother’s silver christening mug. The nest is in a martini glass so you can see all sides of it.

The variety of feathers is amazing. There are spotted feathers, delicate beige with faint stripes, solid black feathers, brown with rust edges, and fluffy white goose down feathers. The prettiest are the miniature peacock feathers, with the vibrant blue-green coloring, and the same distinctive eye as peacock tail feathers have. It must have been a very soft home for the baby birds who were born there.