From: giraffe@longneck.inc (giraffe~⇔)
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.pictures.artpics
Subject: Re: Critters - KitchenBert_AndSoTheyBuild07-iej.jpg
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 03:07:59 GMT

>*
>*From a educational book for children
>*And So They Build
>*Written & illustrated by Bert Kitchen
>*
>*ISBN 1-56402-502-0

I wouldn't mind one of these lovely little birds hanging
around here - she could do my mending :-)
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KitchenBert_AndSoTheyBuild07-iej

A tailorbird will be safer if she hides her nest
and so she builds.......

The tailorbird lives in southern China, India, and Southeast Asia, and the female usually nests in a garden or on cultivated land.

She chooses one or two large, living leaves on a tree and draws their edges together, using her beak and feet. She makes small holes down the sides with the sharp point of her beak. Then she twists spiders' webs, bark, and plant fibers into threads and pushes them through the holes to hold the leaves together. Each stitch is fastened with a rough knot. Inside this leavy pocket the tailorbird can build her nest of grasses, plant down, and fibers - safely camouflaged among the trees.