Microseason: Sparrows Build Nests

SPRING

SPRING EQUINOX

SPARROWS BUILD NESTS

20 - 24 March

Extremely resourceful birds, sparrows leverage the nearest available materials to build the nest to nurture their young fledgling. These sparrow nests also serves a incredible hints as to how we can create better sustainable homes.

Once a pair of sparrows has chosen each other, they leave the flock and work together to build a nest. The incubation period for sparrows lasts about ten days. After hatching, the fledglings take about two weeks before they are ready to leave the nest. The nesting process is no longer than one month. This is a short but lively period.

Sparrows often choose nesting places that are high off the ground and in close proximity to human habitation, such as gaps in roofs, entrances, under eaves, beneath roof tiles, rain gutters, and ventilation fans. These variables provide protection, as predators like crows and cats are less likely to attack in elevated areas and where humans are present.By nesting in small and narrow spaces within human environments, sparrows have adapted to coexist with people while keeping their fledgling safe from danger.

In addition to more traditional materials like clay, grasses, feathers, leaves, and branches, we find creative sparrows that make use of ceramics, baskets, and streetlamp shades that humans have left behind.

We all need one another. And our instinctive individual needs, organically benefit others in the ecosystem. This is the way of the natural world. And humans are very much a part of it all.

In tsuchikabe, heritage earthen wall construction, we use hyper-regional clay, fermented rice straw, sand, and seaweed. This is applied to a skeletal bamboo structure woven together with hemp rope. Opportunities to share about Japanese materials and technique have created time and space to remember that whether Norway or Morocco, human or bird, we all have the same basic needs.

Photo credit: Tamba Newspaper, Kana Anzai