Exquisite Bird Nests from Across the Globe

These intricate structures are Natural History Museums in TringBritain, home to one of the world’s oldest and largest bird collections, with over one million specimens.

Some of the nests pictured are built primarily from dry grasses, such as the nest of the spectacled longhorn beetle (main photo), the only specimen known to have been studied, and the open “ball” nest of the desert cicola (top photo), which has a roof and an entrance surrounded by spider webs. Others, like the nest of the brown noddy (bottom photo), are built from a mixture of different materials, including bird excrement and colonies of calcified aquatic invertebrates called bryozoans.

The nests of the Bok Makieri (pictured above) are a sleek, open-cup design typical of perching birds, and are handcrafted for both sexes. The similarly crafted, light-ventilated brown-eared bulbul nest (pictured below), made primarily of twigs and bamboo leaves, is still in its original packaging from 1896.

The multiple open cup-shaped nests (pictured below) have been built by a variety of birds, but they are all occupied by cuckoos, who lay their eggs in the nests of over 100 other bird species around the world.

In his new book Interesting bird nests and eggsIn “The Bird’s Nest,” which features all these images, the museum’s senior curator Douglas Russell delves into the history of some of the specimens. “The nest is a part of an environment, a moment in time,” Russell says. “You couldn’t have a more comprehensive little feathered botanist to take these little specimens and have them.”

New Scientist Video
Check out the Natural History Museum’s rare bird archives youtube.com/newscientist