Earlier this week I was picking some wild blackberries that grow along the fences and creek bed at the rear of our property when I ran across this tiny bird nest built on a tussock of tall grass. I only got a quick glance of the bird, tiny, brown, with huge terrified eyes, as it would run off into the nearby underbrush. There was no way of getting a picture of the bird without disturbing nearby vegetation and further exposing the nest. But I did get a photo of the nest and three eggs, along with a nickel for a size reference:
Sorry it is so blurry… Anyone have any idea what kind of bird owns this nest?
Today, 5 days later, the nest is empty. I still don’t know what kind of bird this was, so I don’t know if the nest was raided, or if the eggs hatched and the babies moved out all in such a short period. I imagine that ground-nesting birds have to leave the next pretty quickly…