Lisa Thorpe

Making a nest

Awhile back Doug, who works here at The Bishop’s Ranch, brought me this birds nest he found.  The nest had probably been started when things were quiet here at The Ranch but abandoned when they found their chosen spot too close the hustle and bustle of humans.  The nest itself is an absolute wonder.  The pair (blue birds, sparrows, swallows… who knows?) started with rough sticks, many of which look to be cuttings from the near by vineyards and thick tough grasses, the next layer is of coarse but finer grasses that come in tighter and start the cup shapes, last comes a soft delicate layer of hair, finer and shorter than horse tail no doubt pulled off the barbed wire fences surrounding the neighbors dairy, a gift from the cows. The nest a perfect mandala with a little Wabi Sabi thrown in for good measure. Resting in this lovingly built beauty are three, blue, speckled eggs.  Three emblems of hope, of persistence, of nature’s yearning to reproduce, of loves labors lost. Perhaps not all lost, I spoke to a friend who knows a lot about birds and he said that if it wasn’t too late in the season, then most likely our intrepid pair made a new home of wonder and gently placed hope in it’s soft depths once again…this time I hope they succeeded.