I Made a Nest

As leaves begin to drop, nests weather and autumn winds pick up, it’s the perfect time to find fallen nests. I spotted one on the side of a forest track yesterday, or so I thought. It was just a flowerhead, gone to seed and fallen. But boy was it pretty! I saw another, and another and gathered them up. In my cupped hand, they looked just like a nest. 

I thought of the way a bird settles herself in the centre of the material she gathers and presses herself down, moulding it to shape. I worked the seedheads in my hands, round and round, pressing my thumb as you would with a clay pot. I could feel the layers of thin stems pressing together, becoming tangled. I worked it as I walked, and noticed a feather. I laid it in the bowl of the nest. A bit of sheep’s wool. A tuft of dog hair. Another feather. A thistle seed, the kind you chase in the wind, make a wish on and release. 

Now for strength. How to keep it together? As I walked, my eye was scanning the leaf litter on the path. I saw and discounted things over and over. Already I could sense the pliability I needed, something manoeuvrable, but without a shape memory too strong. A leaf wants to bounce back flat. A piece of bark will break. I spied a stick, not too thick, not too thin. This is how they do it, I thought. Instinctively knowing what is needed next. Sometimes happening on something unexpected. 

I’ve thought often about trying to weave a nest. I love how organically this happened. I didn’t set out to do it. It was in response to something that felt like it could be a nest. Everything I needed was on that walk. The nest is of that place. A different walk would have produced a different kind of nest (case in point, the nest I made walking around my garden later that day—but more on that later).