Using only their feet and their beaks, birds are able to construct secure and durable homes that are protected from predators and from climactic extremes. A high level of craftsmanship is typically involved since many of these nests can be duplicated only by expert human craftsmen who are exceptionally skilled in using special tools.

–Theodore Xenophon Barber, The Human Nature of Birds

The female hummingbird builds a nest the size of half an English walnut shell using plant down and spider webs. She then lines the inside with moss and plant fibers for her clutch of two. The female Robin gathers sticks, grass stems and string to create the basket of her nest then lines the inside with a layer of mud, smoothing and shaping it with her breast in preparation for her shocking blue eggs.

The Baltimore Oriole creates a long sack like nest which hangs from a branch. She weaves her long nest home out of grapevine, grasses, milk weed and Spanish moss in anticipation for her marbled eggs.