I check several times daily on “our” nesting Bushtits. It is a fifteen yard walk out our front door to the spruce they’ve claimed. Through Monday he and she were still working on the nest, but no the construction or decorating phase seems to have passed. Here are two pictures from Monday of the male carrying brightly colored lichen to the nest.
These images also show how the nest is not suspended from a branch but actually built around two vertical twigs that hang from the branch that is about as big in diameter as the Bushtits themselves.
in this photo the male is just dropping off his perch beyond the limb. The female is in the foreground having emerged from inside the nest sac.
Here I’ve clearly marked the two vertical branches around which the nest is woven. Remember a given mass of spider web has more strength than the same mass of steel. so this nest has to be torn by a predator…it will not loosen and fall off in normal summer weather.
Coming and going at the nest;
A modest bit of construction material:
Here a day later is the female back with a tiny tuft of caulking material:
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