Incubating

Our friend Bern noticed this hen blackbird last week building a nest in the rambling rose outside our kitchen window.  He watched her shaping the cup with her rump, preparing it for her eggs.  Isn't it extraordinary how a bird can build something so precise and intricate without the benefit of fingers and thumbs, with no tuition and little practice?

She should be safe from cats at least because the rose has the most savage of thorns, and the nest is deep within it.  This is already the second blackbird nest of the season in our back garden, the first brood was hopping about two weeks ago.  I still haven't found where that nest was hidden.