First-home builder?

When I worked in the deep NZ bush in the 1950s it was legendary that if you were looking for emergency shelter, you should head for a totara tree.

A thrush on our property must have heard about this. Perhaps she's a first-home builder. Maybe her mother told her “It’s often pretty wet in these parts, kid. So when you’re looking for a dry place to build a nest, choose a totara“. Anyway, here she is now, a few metres outside our bedroom window industriously working away at a new season’s nest - in the totara tree we planted about twenty years ago.

But her nest is high up in the top of the tree, in full view from our bedroom window. And no doubt soon to be spotted by some passing harrier or falcon. Worse, there hasn’t been any decent rain in weeks, so she hasn’t discovered how vulnerable she and her brood are going when we have a sub-tropical downpour.

You have to admire her diligence, her commitment, and the instinctive drive which propels her to build and round out her little home. But has she got one of the basics right? We’ll watch her with interest.