Translucent triangle

Flycatchers and Chinese soup.

At last!  A proper winter snowstorm came through and layered the trail with a thick mantle of bright, heavy snow. I crunched along in my boots and admired the sparkling rounded contours of tree limbs and branches, fallen timbers, and boulders.  Under the pale blue sky everything was swaddled in a luminous white blanket.   

This quad-forked branch had caught a big handful of fresh show in an intriguing triangular shape and held it up for the sun to shine on.  So pretty. It made me think of a bird’s nest. 

“Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.”

Miguel de Cervantes

In Minnesota, triangle-shaped nests are constructed in the forks of trees by the Least Flycatcher, a delightful little bird with an incessant chippy chatter who darts swiftly from branch to branch gobbling up insects. Supremely creative home decorators, they have been known to use dragonfly wings to line their nests. 

In China, triangle-shaped nests are used for the high-end Asian delicacy, bird’s-nest soup. These edible nests are woven from the saliva of swiftlets and rich in collagen, pre-digested protein and other nutrients thought to improve immunity, promote wellness, and restore youthfulness. It’s fascinating - go look it up!