Is this Spider Force worthy?
A year ago I was more cautious about touching things on the ground but now that I’m wearing a mask and washing my hands so much, I touch what I want. In January I found a tiny bird nest on the sidewalk that had blown out of a tree last spring, and I brought it home and put it in a corner on our balcony.
This month two tiny birds started visiting the corner every day. I thought maybe they were trying to reuse parts of the nest, but this week we noticed they’ve built a new, bigger nest of their own on the balcony wall.
Our city has a lot of sparrows and warblers but these look different - based on the National Geographic Field Guide to Birds of North America, I think they’re house finches.
It’s not my place to judge where house finches decide to make a nest, but for what it’s worth I think they’ve made a huge mistake. We’re out on our balcony all the time, and now there are always two birds waiting for us to move.
We get up and stand by the door, and then they go to the nest, and they don’t mind if we come back and sit.
I’m curious what the house finches are thinking. Do they also think they’ve made a huge mistake? Should they be on a less-used balcony? Were they out of time or ideas, were they over-confident?
Or is this fine?
All I know is that their predators are cats, blue jays, hawks, snakes, and grackles, and I am prepared to do anything I can to protect them.
Boaz is most worried about the nest falling and wants to put a bucket of leaves on the balcony under the nest, just in case.
Please send good house finch thoughts.
Some non-bird news:
Snail Mail party is in the mail as of today! Our mail carrier Joe has had a busy week, so we’ve been filling the local post box with 200 envelopes a day instead of scheduling a bulk pickup. Hopefully they’ll make it to you safe and soon.
More How To Draw zines! People have been asking for more copies or a digital version of the How To Draw zine. Here they are! Every print copy comes with a digital version you can use for educational purposes. The digital version also includes some extra pages that had to be cut from the Snail Mail Party edition because it weighed too much to mail. They’re printed at a print shop in Pittsburgh and mailed by me.
More t-shirts! I found one last box of Sad Animal Facts t-shirts! I think there may be a t-shirt spring somewhere in the closet because I don’t know how they keep appearing. They’re screenprinted on the Oregon Coast and mailed by me.