Homecoming: A Swallow-tailed Kite's return to the nest turns a springtime walk into a goose-bump moment

摘要

Drive over the big bridge. Take an immediate right turn onto the bumpy gravel road. Go up and over the steep railroad grade. Turn left and then right. Continue until you reach a shrub marked with four red ties, stop, and look up. The directions seem simple, and they are. I stop and look up, and there it is, easily visible, nestled 40 feet above me in the upper reaches of an eastern cottonwood tree: a good-size stick nest, a foot deep and 20 inches across, draped with Spanish moss and exposed to the elements, such as yesterday's torrential rains and tree-swaying winds, a Swallow-tailed Kite's nest.