Birds: Intelligent Architects

Few days ago, I came across a tree with a nest hanging so low on the tree branch that I could reach out for it and grab it. The way the tiny leaves and sticks were interwoven and carefully crafted left me amazed! Imagine what a bird could do: ‘a fairly cylindrical five-star suite in the animal kingdom’. “This is a subtle mix of architectural intelligence and a fine work of art,” I said to myself. And of course, I did the 21st century thing: I pulled out my phone and took some shots of the nest. This nest left me wandering how intelligent birds can. To quench this curiosity, I decided to read up on bird nests and thus, this blog.
A bird nest is a bird house. Primarily, nests are used for breeding. But also, they may be reused in the non-breeding season for roosting and some special species build dormitory nests or roost nests (winter-nest) that are used for roosting.
There is so much architectural intelligence to show in the way and manner birds choose to build their nests. Really, when I read up about nests on Wiki, I was left amazed! Several species of birds and their architectural wonders.
Starting with the king of the sky: The Eagle! It’s obvious that if they were humans, they would prefer to live in sky scrapers. Eagles live in eyries. Located high up on cliffs or trees, the eyries are simple platform nest. History records that there were over 100 eyries known in Britain and at least 50 in Ireland in the middle of the 19th century. What I find interesting about the eagle is that they use and refurbish their nests over and over again and use them for years! I’m pretty sure the White House has been refurbished more times and the best eyries…haha!
The Montezuma Oropendola, also know as the village weaver, is another species of birds with interesting architectural prowess. They build their nest hanging down from a tree branch. The nest of the village weaver is elaborately woven using fibres and vines to form a structure that is somewhat like a water droplet about to drip off from a surface. Perhaps humans are gonna include that to homes of the future. I’d love to live in such a house.
Really, I just find it interesting how that small animals can be so intelligent to make up an edifice with the limited resource they can get. I hope you found this article interesting as well. I am not an animal lover, but I love creativity! Thanks for your time!

Reference; https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/eyrie, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montezuma_oropendola,
https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_nest
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