海角大神

What would you do if you had more time than money?

For a lot of us, this is no longer a hypothetical question. But at least this pandemic has got us on the right side of the equation. Time, without money, is still valuable. Money, without time, is just a sad hobby.

So now people are taking up music, reading for enjoyment, gardening. Or they鈥檙e discovering that a lack of time was never what was holding them back after all.

When the world took an unexpected breather, we were just coming up on springtime in this hemisphere. And I knew just what I wanted to do with my time at home. I wanted to watch bushtits build a nest.

That鈥檚 been on my wish list for a while. We have no bushtit shortage here in the Pacific Northwest. They鈥檙e delightfully plural little birds, so if you鈥檝e seen one, you鈥檝e probably seen 30. Bushtits like each other a whole lot. They talk over each other constantly and nobody minds. 鈥淩oad trip!鈥� they squeak, pouring out of a tree in an adorable swarm, and off they all go to the next tree over. We have bunches of them. They have to be nesting somewhere. And their nests are extremely cool.

If you take the time to look, they鈥檙e easy enough to spot, dangling from low branches. That鈥檚 right: They dangle. Bushtits knit themselves a sock. There鈥檚 an entry hole in the top, and the eggs go in the bottom. It鈥檚 made mostly of stretchy spiderweb, chinked with lichens and moss. A mated pair puts it together. You know it鈥檚 the right season because suddenly you鈥檙e seeing one or two bushtits and not a whole bustle of them.聽

The teenagers and hangers-on and unlucky suitors have to hole up somewhere in miserable isolation, hyperventilating until they get the invitation to the open house. Then they鈥檙e all back together again, reunited, crammed happily into the sock and jabbering away.

Obviously this is something I don鈥檛 want to miss. Many of the trees around our house are likely candidates for a nest. We have plenty of bushtits. I thought if I paid close attention, and saw a bushtit or two flying around with a bit of nesting material, I could scout out where they were going, grab a lawn chair and a pair of binoculars, and happily while away the lockdown hours. If there鈥檚 anything better to do with my time, I certainly don鈥檛 know what it is.

In fact, I鈥檇 stated this plan out loud to my husband, Dave, on the very day we came home from a walk and started up the stairs to the front porch. And right there, big as life and small as a pair of pingpong balls, were two excited bushtits in our wisteria vine, checking anchor points for a sock and nattering about the pattern. Could it be? Right on our front porch, a few feet away from our watching-the-world-go-by chairs?

It could!聽

It was!

This has to be a sign we鈥檙e living right, I thought. So we鈥檝e taken up our chairs in gratitude and humility, and monitored the knitting progress.聽

They were just casting on for the first few days. It didn鈥檛 look like much: maybe dandelion fluff held together by static cling. Then it started to take shape. They鈥檒l spend about a month on the whole project. By the time they鈥檝e turned the heel, they鈥檙e practically home free.

Then it鈥檚 egg time, and the announcements go out, and pretty soon the whole extended family is back together and tickled to death about it. Everyone鈥檚 got a compliment. The mated pair has done a magnificent job, and they have every right to be proud.

The only thing they鈥檙e really no good at is social distancing.