LICHEN-COVERED BIRD CRADLES

     One day in May, while walking through a deciduous woods in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, I found a petite, lichen-covered bird nest flying on  the trail.  Apparently, it was blown out of its tree in the storm the night before.  I picked it up and saw that it was a pretty, little nursery.  I later learned it was built by a pair of blue-gray gnatcatchers, which are tiny birds only four and one half inches long.

     Gnatcatchers and ruby-throated hummingbirds have several characteristics in common, though they are not related.  Both kinds of birds are the only ones of their respective families nesting in the eastern United States.  Both species are tiny, the hummers being only three and one half inches in length.  Both migrate to tropical America in late summer to avoid winter weather and find food.  And both feed on tiny insects.    

     Both construct lovely, compact cups of fine plant fibers and plant down.  Those lovely nurseries are held together and attached to the tops of  small, horizontal tree limbs with spider webs.  The outsides of those cradles are covered with lichens, which blends those tiny nests with lichens on tree bark, making those nurseries invisible.     

     Few people see these attractive, little nests because they are high in trees.  And there they resemble knots on the lichen-covered boughs they straddle. 

     Lichens are a combination of fungi and algae.  The fungus absorbs water and the chlorophyll-green algae in that moisture uses sunlight to make food for the fungi and algae.

     Gnatcatchers are blue-gray on top and white below.  They have a white ring around each eye and a dark "brow" over each one.  And they each have a long, white-edged tail that they often wag.  

     Gnatcatchers ingest insects and spiders from trees, and by fluttering into the air after them.  And each pair raises four to five offspring in their appealing, two-and-one-half-inch cradles.  

     Ruby-throats are green on top, which camouflages them among green foliage, and white below.  Only adult males have ruby throats.  

     Like all hummers, ruby-throats sip nectar from flowers, and eat tiny insects in the blooms they visit.  And they quickly fly forwards, backwards and sideways.  

     Female ruby-throats create nurseries one inch across.  And each female has two broods of two young per summer. 

     Blue-gray gnatcatchers and ruby-throated hummingbirds are petite birds with tiny, beautiful cradles.

Even though we don't see those lovely nurseries in the trees, it's nice to know the potential for that is always there.   

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