The Pendant Nest of a Northern (Baltimore) Oriole

After being given a pendant nest my girls were challenged to find out what bird built the nest.

A couple days ago during homeschool club, a good friend of ours, who knows of my girls' interest in birds (and that we've been studying birds for the last few months), presented Jerah and Joely with a little gift — a beautiful little pendant nest they had found on a broken branch. But being the homeschooling mom that she is, our friend didn't tell the girls what kind of bird made the nest. Instead, she challenged the girls to do a little research and find out for themselves.

And Joely, my little six-year-old, eagerly took her up on the challenge. When we got home, Joely immediately picked up our Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds and started flipping through each and every one of the picture plates in the book, looking for a picture of a bird with a nest like the one we were given. When she came upon this picture, she exclaimed that she had "found it!"

And sure enough, we emailed our friend who had given us the nest, and she confirmed that it was the nest of a Northern (Baltimore) Oriole — at least as far as she could tell from the research she had done.

Can I just say that Joely was ecstatic that she figured it out on her own? And I was pretty impressed too, considering that only a small portion of the Oriole's nest is visible in the picture. Joely's quite the little sleuth!

I thought I'd share some pictures of the nest as well. It's in excellent condition, although it's obviously unusable due to the broken branch. It's amazing that these little Northern Orioles are able to weave such an intricate nest of strings and fibers. As a human being, I'd have a hard time making a similar nest myself, yet God created these little creatures with the ability to do this without having to be taught!

By the way, if you happen to know if our identification of this bird nest is incorrect, please let me know!

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