Birds’ Nest

Weather: The cold mornings, perhaps combined with the layer of snow that fell early Friday, finally killed off many of the perennial tops that had remained green.

Last useful snow: 12/7. Week’s low: 11 degrees F. Week’s high: 47 degrees F in the shade.

What’s still green: Stems on roses; leaves on cliff roses, juniper, arborvitae, and other evergreens, yuccas, red hot pokers, Dutch iris, grape hyacinths, blue flax, winecup mallow, beards tongues, snapdragons, pink evening primrose, vinca, sweet peas, Queen Anne’s lace, chrysanthemum, June, needle and cheat grasses

What’s gray, gray-green, or blue green: Four-winged saltbush, fernbush, buddleia, pinks, winterfat, snow-in-summer leaves

What’s red: Stems on sandbar willow; leaves on alfilerillo

Animal sightings: Small birds.

Weekly update: It snowed in the night, so every horizontal surface was covered with snow at dawn on Friday. The birds didn’t come out until the afternoon, after it had melted. I don’t know where they spent the morning.

I discovered an empty nest in the crook of the apricot tree Monday. It would have afforded no shelter. It was as level as it could have been made, with a rim that would have been covered with snow.

The birds that winter here don’t bother with nests. Generations of chickadees live in my neighbor’s metal building. Some used to live under my eaves until a pigeon tried to move in. I chased it out, but the small birds didn’t return. Perhaps the prowling cats kept them away.

The small birds I saw after the snow had the dark hangman’s hoods I was told characterized juncos. They flitted from my young cherry trees to the farm fence. The only place I can imagine transients would find shelter is another neighbor’s arborvitae. I know birds live there, because I hear them. All I ever see is brown bodies.

My friend who feeds birds in Santa Fé has an arborvitae near his feeders. It’s always filled with birds, and I gather different species coexist in the evergreen branches.

I have no idea what type of bird built the nest. I didn’t notice any special activity in that area.

It was something fairly large, as small birds go, or something that hatched a lot of eggs. It used some garlic chive stems and possibly winterfat twigs. It also tore pieces off a shop tower that blew into my yard from the chickadee neighbor.

Notes on photographs: Birds’ nest, 3 December 2018.