A few weeks ago, while we were out for a wander in Edinburgh's top notch botanic gardens, we spotted this substantial nest up a tree. Nests are generally not so visible but apart from being quite chuffed at spotting a nest, we thought nothing more of it and wandered on our way. We didn't realise, till we were looking at an exhibition on the way out called Locating the Nest that the nest was one of many around the gardens linked to the exhibitions.
Locating the Nest is an exhibition of three Dumfries and Galloway artists, poet Tom Pow, printmaker Hugh Bryden and Lizzie Farey who has a studio back home in Kirkcudbright (I blogged it here when I dropped in on the Arts and Crafts trail last year)
I've seen Lizzie Farey willow wall hangings before.....
....but this is the first time I've seen her making nests.
It the picture above you can see a wall at the back covered with Hugh Bryden's pictures of black and white nests and colours eggs. Being behind glass, they were a bit tricky to photograph but here are two of my better attempts. Not pictured here, but one of the nests was empty.
Some of the comments in the comments book are worth an appearance too.
As has already been mentioned the nests continued outside. Some of them are difficult to find and we had to return a couple of times to find them all - well actually I went back to work and only got back once more and so received a consignment of photos of the remaining nests (since I supplement my offshore life with photos, and also you lots' blogs, I shall count myself as having been there personally - after a fashion). Here are the nests I actually saw.
The first outside nest is quite unnest like and floats on the pond outside the entrance building. This is it viewed from inside.
And outside from above.
We had quite a difficulty interpreting the map to try and find this one and just found it before closing time.
Not part of the exhibition but I think they belong in this blog. We heard a peeping coming from a tree and after quite some time managed to work out what it was. There was a hole in the tree which turned out to be a woodpeckers nest. Here's a woodpecker sticking it's head out to prove it.
They didn't hang about for posing much I'm afraid but you can just see the woodpecker disappearing round the side of the tree in this shot.
8 comments:
Very impressed you managed to get the woodpecker at all. It's obviously too lazy to go and collect stuff, and why bother if there is a nice sized hole for you to kip in? Lovely collection of things, thank you.
Interesting, but the birds are rather better at nest-building than we'll ever be. I think I could spend a long time looking at children's drawings...and to think I could have been an art teacher - just one of those roads not taken.
Some of those human built nests are quite interesting. How cute is that wee woodpecker peeking his head out. :)
Very interesting Sandy. It's 25 years since I was at the Botanical Gardens.
I see they have a sparrowhawk nest webcam on the site, which would be fine if you could see the whole screen.
Sparrowhawk Nest
Well done getting the woodpecker.
I loved these nest constructions/desconstructions.
Shundo, Two sets of eyes help a lot when looking for something in a tree. In Scottish weather, a hole has a lots of plus's compared to a standard nest.
John, Roads not travelled - we'll just never know. Perhaps years of being an art teacher would ruin the appreciation of childrens' drawings.
Ellie, we couldn't decide whether it was a wee woodpecker or not - I like to think it was.
Jim, I heard about the sparrowhawk but I didn't realise they had a webcam - I'm away to look at it.
Solitary Walker, Welcome and thank you for your comment.
It's a lovely exhibition isn't it? I didn't find many of the outdoor nests relating to the exhibition. I wonder if birds will end up nesting in any of the exhibits? Great to see the woodpecker's nest like that!
Now Juliet, that would be a turn up for the books.
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