Finding and making a home is one of the most intimate and telling jobs a bird will do. For a frenzied month or so, many birds make their way from Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America, all for the long daylight hours and plump caterpillars of the north. A nest, and the course of that nest, can tell us all sorts of things about the life of a bird. Birds are among the best animals for teaching landscape ecology; responding to area and structure, the bird community of an area is a reliable indication of grass versus trees and shrubs, and small versus large areas.

Photo by Carolyn Byers