Bushtits nest

Once again (this page must be inspiring me), I went outside to see if I could get a picture of the nest. We haven't had a nest in the rosebush for 2 years (we had 2 prior nests in the same shrub) so this is a bit of an event for us. With my little camera, I was able to get these couple of pix quickly as I didn't want to disturb the birds' work.
Indeed, they're building with care and haste both. It's been storming and blowing here these past few days so I imagine that repairs might be in order from the effects of that weather. Today, though, is a beauty of a day and the tits are working hard.
Their nests are completely ingenious. The ones constructed in this 9-10 foot rosebush are anchored in the crook of several very thorny branches (old thick canes) and are made of mosses, lichens, flower pods (in the photos if you look very closely, you will see small brown pods which recently protected and grew cinquefoil petals), grasses, small leaves, lint, and are connected and wrapped with spiders' webs filaments. A few years ago, I purposely set out some silk thrums from some weaving project of mine (thrums are the leftover tie-ons which are generally cut off when the weaving is done and tossed out) to see if the birds would use them. Indeed, a few short threads made their way into one of the nests! How thrilling that was.
All these materials are woven into a long, flexible, and surprisingly strong sack whose opening faces north and over which there is usually a "rainfly" for storm protection. This little pouch will protect a clutch of tits until they fledge (6-8 weeks after they're laid in the nest).
I fairly ran to get pictures today also because the roseshrub is leafing out so quickly. I remembered trying the same thing a couple of years ago and, alas, I could barely see anything for the leaves. Another point of these little birds' ingenuity: this particular rosebush has large thorns, large leaves, and large flowers. All of this will serve that little nest well when the neighborhood cats and crows start snooping.
So, look closely at these pictures of the nest. You'll have to view them fullscreen to see anything. You will, however, see a well disguised and constructed pouch/home which, hopefully, will house a family of tiny birds soon. My fingers are crossed that I can continue to observe them and pass along my notes.

After my first post, I went outside to see what's in bloom and felt that I owed it to myself to recognize all that beauty, all that color. Sure, there're greens and browns aplenty but the focal point as far as bugs and humans are concerned is far brighter and much more insistent.
As you can see, this is an early spring array. There will be much, much more added to this collection. Also, I'll make every effort to record the progress of the Bushtits' nest being built in the Westerland rose bush in the back yard.

My photos

I wanted to establish a place where I could store and view current visual inspirations easily and quickly. This blog is as good as anywhere. The shots I've posted are a very small sampling of what has caught my eye and time and thoughts of late but the complete number of them are more of the same. By that I mean that, from a quick pick and viewing, all my photos are of nature and seem to feature overwhelming varieties of greens and browns. Even though the surroundings of the photos couldn't differ more (Pacific N.W. versus Southern Arizona), my visual sense zeroed in on those colors. This is a surprise for me as I normally am drawn to far more vivid colors.
I am not surprised at all at the amount of texture that has moved me. Textures really send me as there's so much depth, history, archaeology even.
I'll post more later.