BIRD ARCHITECTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18275, 16 December 1922, Page 2 (Supplement)

BIRD ARCHITECTS.

MAGPIE'S WIRE NEST.

A pigeon is always one of the most careless of all nest builders, and its residence is generally made up of the roughest bits of stick piled together so cart>lessly that, it is often possible to see the eggs through the bottom of the rude platform.

A wire nest is in the museum at Brisbane. It came from the station of Mr. George Taylor, at Merino Downs, near Roma. This gentleman had a pet magpie, which used to leave tho house every spring and go off into the woods to build, coming home again after its nesting duties were over.

Wanting a young magpie for a friend. the bird's owner followed his pet, and found its nest in a lofty gum tree. A boy was sent up the tree. He came down with a bird, and reported that the nest was all made of 'wire. His assertion being laughed at, he went up again, cut the branch off, and brought the nest down to prove his words. What he had said was perfectly true. The nest was almost entirely constructed of bits of fine .wire ingeniously twisted together. A small piece of fine wire netting served for a mattress at the bottom of the nest, and over this was laid straw.

Robins ordinarily use moss and similar materials for their neat little residences. But building as they do, usually near human habitations, strange odds and ends are frequenty found forming part of their nests. Near Leominster, in Hertfordshire, a robin's nest was found which was largely made of hits of coloured paper picked from the outside of a pile of old meat cans which lay in a ditch near by.