These friends are a pair of Brown-headed Nuthatches. They have chosen a dead pine stump as a nesting site and have been quite the busy little things excavating the woodpecker hole and lining it with grasses and mosses. They will make trips to the feeders..eat a bit.. hunt for building material and then disappear into the hole. This process is repeated over and over again during the day as they work at homebuilding. I came across the nest purely by accident. My brother had given me a lot of two inch flower pots which I toted home in a large bucket. An old pine stump was off to one side of the path and as I neared it, a tiny bird fluttered out of a hole in the upper part of the stump. I did not think too much about it but then another came out, flew to the nearby Black Gum tree and started scolding me. It then dawned on me that I was intruding on their territory. I eased away to give them space and sure enough, one flew back to the stump. I watched for a few minutes and the other tiny Nuthatch soon returned as well. I am glad that I did not disrupt their nestbuilding for long. Perhaps soon, there will be a nest full of the little Nuthatches!
As I left the birds to finish their work, I sat and pondered the strength of a spiderweb. Earlier in the morning, I had taken pictures of two spiderwebs that were laden with beads of fog. Now these were not the fine misty type droplets but were quite large. There were many, many droplets on each strand but still the webs held. These truly did appear to be jeweled necklaces..amazing.
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