Field Notes—

The Nests Of Winter, An Exposé

By Curtiss Clark

Midwinter is all about layers: layers of bedcovers, layers of clothing, layers of ice and snow. Everything gets covered, once, twice, three times…

Why is it, then, with all this covering up we still feel so naked and exposed — more than in the swelter of summer when we strip everything off?

The winter world is an x-ray of its summer self. The landscape’s skin of leafy vegetation is peeled back to lay bare the bones of the earth. The sun, with so few shadows to chase, seems so present and powerful even as it reclines in the south. There is no hiding from the cold gaze of winter, no retreat for living things, except to hollows in trees, to burrows in the brush, or in my case, to books by the fire.

For those who do come out of hiding, there are rich rewards. Lots of secrets are revealed in the winter light. Scan the skeletal silhouettes of trees and the well-hidden nests of last summer stand out like knots in the smooth branch lines. The cup nests of sparrows, finches, robins, and catbirds, and, if you are lucky, the beautiful suspended nests of kinglets, vireos, and orioles reveal themselves for inspection now that their secrets have long-since fledged.

Most of the nests you see in trees in winter are vacant. Gray squirrel nests, or dreys as they are sometimes called, are the exception. The thickets of leaves and sticks so precariously wedged into tree forks and crotches have warm hearts on cold winter nights.

I have been watching the papery gray nest of a departed colony of white-faced hornets in a hickory tree across the street slowly disintegrate in this winter’s gusts and gales. I walked directly beneath it scores of times last summer and yet did not see it until leafless November after all the workers and males had died and the young queens had found more suitable quarters for their winter hibernation. White-faced hornets are aggressive and vicious, and I would have given the nest a wider berth had I known it was there. But now I am happy to have it close by. Winter’s deconstruction of it is a slow and beautiful process.

Bernd Heinrich is a professor of biology at the University of Vermont and author of a wonderful series of books on his sensitive and scientific observations in the forests of northern New England. He notes in his latest book, Winter World, that he rarely finds a hornets’ nest. But he has frequently found the gray paper of hornets’ nests woven into the exterior of the globular suspended nests of red-eyed vireos. He suggests that it is not merely for decoration.

Like most active bird nests in spring and summer, vireo nests are hard to spot as they hang by their rims in branch forks obscured by leaves. Prof Heinrich speculates that the chance predator that does discover the nest might think twice about raiding something that so closely resembles a hornets’ nest. As species compete for survival, another layer of defense is always a good idea.

Winter is a good time to examine found nests, and close inspection clearly shows nature’s proclivity for layering as a means of protection.

A robin’s nest, for example, presents to the outside world an unkempt exterior of twigs and coarse grasses, sometimes bound and patched with string, fabric, and other found treasures. Within that is a smooth cup of hardened mud, which is in turn lined with dry fine grasses to cushion the eggs and nestlings.

Even those messy nests of the gray squirrels have a layered structure. Bernd Heinrich describes one he found on the ground, blown from its tree, that had 26 layers of dried green oak leaves inside the outer thatch of dead leaves and sticks. In the middle of it all was a cozy lair padded with shredded bark.

As the winter wind continues to peel away the multiple exterior protective layers of the hornets’ nest across the street, I should begin the see the enclosed stack of paper combs placed so carefully at the heart of the colony. I have no idea what hornets need protection from, except maybe stone-throwing boys, who themselves will presently need protection.

I’m looking forward to watching the slow undoing of this nest, knowing that my own nest, layered with loved ones, cordwood, books, newspapers, Tivo, cats, dog, pots of tea, and slipper socks, is close by, ready and waiting, as I retreat, feeling naked and exposed under the cold gaze of winter.