Figure 1 – American robin’s nest in winter, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

The other morning I went up to the Minuteman National Historic Site by the Old North Bridge in Concord, MA – one of my favorite spots.  They’ve got it buttoned up for winter, despite the hoards of post-Thanksgiving visitor. I explored my usual haunts and there are a couple of places that I like to break away from the trail and risk the mud and ticks in order to get down to the river. There I like to project back and imagine a time when this was a picnicking or swimming location – maybe I am romanticizing.

In any event I pushed my way past a low lying bush and was delighted to find the “perfect” bird’s nest of Figure 1 – no longer well hidden at all. I am pretty sure that it is the artful handiwork of a pair of American robins (Turdus migratorius). What is so wonder is the perfection of the shape created by this avian basket weaver and how well it fits in with the surrounding scrub. There is a marvelous sense of three-dimensionality. And I think, that such a perfect birds nest – now empty – is not without deeper meaning. New England winters are cold and harsh but in the spring the Robins will return. Both the circle and the nest itself convey that kind of meaning.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 70 mm, ISO 400, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/160th sec at f/9.0 with no exposure compensation.