ARCHBOLD WEATHER

Bird Nest, Undisturbed For Years, Reaches Towering Heights





The bird’s nest Jim Frey, Archbold, found built over a porch light at a home that has been unoccupied for more than 20 years. Heat from the light might have helped the mother bird incubate her eggs, Frey said.– photo by David Pugh

The bird’s nest Jim Frey, Archbold, found built over a porch light at a home that has been unoccupied for more than 20 years. Heat from the light might have helped the mother bird incubate her eggs, Frey said.– photo by David Pugh

It looked more like a bird’s condo than a bird’s nest

Jim Frey, Archbold, brought a large bird’s nest to the Archbold Buckeye recently.

But this was no ordinary bird’s nest. This one had reached more than a foot tall.

Frey said the nest, made of mud, straw, and pieces of string, was at his grandmother’s home at 401 South Defiance Street.

Frey said his grandmother, Opal DeVries, died in 1989. No one has lived in the house since.

The nest was built on top of a light fixture over the back porch. Because the house was unoccupied, the birds were rarely disturbed.

He said over the roughly 25 years since his grandmother died, the birds added to the nest each year, until it reached its towering height.

Heat

Frey speculated that one advantage for mother bird was that heat from the light bulb helped, or took over, incubating the eggs laid inside.

The bulb was on a photosensor, so it would only come on at night, when heat was needed. Frey thought that during the day, the sun would provide enough warmth for the eggs.

Eventually, the fixture developed an electrical short and had to be taken down.

Which left the question of what to do with the massive nest.

Frey decided his friends at the Archbold Buckeye would appreciate the straw, string, and mud creation, so he left it on the natural gas meter at the rear of the Buckeye office.

Buckeye staffers couldn’t figure out where it came from until Ross Wm. Taylor, publisher, walked down to see Frey at the Red Cross Drug Store.

Egg

Soon after the nest appeared behind the Buckeye, Mary Huber, general manager, placed an out-of-date chicken egg in the nest for fun, but nothing happened.

Does that mean electric is better than gas?


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *