Sunday, November 14, 2010

Soup anyone?



Tom found this while he was demolishing the front viburnam hedge. He carefully removed the whole stem and branches around it intact, and planted it in the lemon geranium bed for a photo call.  It probably belonged to a blackbird.

10 comments:

Kelly said...

Very interesting pictures, not often one can get such a good look at the home of a bird.

Rosie said...

that was my hair this morning...

Rouchswalwe said...

I've never had bird's nest soup! Now I have questions.

Zhoen said...

Very snug looking. Not the right kind for the soup, of course.

HKatz said...

Something desolate about it. You wonder where they all are now.

20th Century Woman said...

Astonishing what can be done with 2 claws and a beak. Birds are pretty smart.

Unknown said...

I believe that birds' nest soup is made from the nests of swallows. The nests are boiled and the twigs removed my straining to leave a liquor impregnated with the birds' spit used originally by the birds to cement the twigs together. Apparently the nests collected from rock faces often hard to reach and perilous fetch high prices in China

Lucy said...

Thank you good people.

It is a solid, homely, but not meticulously made nest, rather like the bird itself. Some of the little finches' nests are much more complex and exquisite, though I've yet to see a goldfinch nest interwoven with forget-me-knots, which apparently they often are.

Please rest assured I did not intend to boil it down for soup, with or without soy sauce!

Crafty Green Poet said...

I think its swifts that make the birds nests used in soup, rather than swallows.

This is a lovely nest! We found a nest once, that had fallen out of a tree, all straw, lichens and feathers! It's amazing what birds can do and that they all do it so differently

Sheila said...

Friday a week ago, I used a nest that was given to me by a friend a few years ago, in a group counseling session, to illustrate the complexity and both the strength and fragility of relationships.

I find them amazing.