Nesting

The other morning I looked through the bedroom window and noticed this russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) moving:

It was shaking quite a bit, then stopped and a female cardinal hopped into view with a few small branches in her beak. She was building a nest, and snapping the fragrant twigs off to use in it! (I doubt it was the scent of the plant that attracted her, as most birds have a poor sense of smell.)

***

I grabbed the camera, switched to my telephoto lens, and waited for her to return. I quickly realized that the site for the nest was this bamboo:

I waited for quite a long time, but she never did come back to that sage. So instead of photos of her breaking the twigs free, I got several paparazzi-style images of her collecting other materials:

This is why I'm never too quick to clean up my garden in spring. Yes, I keep my yard a mess for the birds. Yeah, that's the reason.

These nest builders were not stopping to pose -- sometimes I barely had time to focus before they dove into the dense foliage...

...then took off again, searching for suitable building materials:

I now know of four different bird nests in various bamboos in my garden. This always seems to me like a risky place to make a nest -- what happens if a new shoot happens to come up in the wrong spot, and pushes right through the nest?

I suppose that's less of a worry to a momma bird than a guy poking around with a big camera lens.

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