nesting urges becoming less prominent
Spring has come and gone yet again and I once again noticed that nesting urges don't tend to come naturally, but rather only when prompted by specific things.
Several years back when I was a newly self-discovered bird, urges like that were strong, or rather the urge to do bird things to feel like a bird and express myself. I would make blanket nests often. I searched various online stores to find a bird plush that most closely resembled a cockatiel chick and picked up a decent size and moderately heavy plaster egg from the craft store to have a baby bird and proportionally sized and weighted egg to put in that nest.
Now I haven't built a blanket nest or got out my egg or chick from storage in a few years, mostly because I moved to a place with a roommate and I did not want to share that animal aspect of myself.
Since then, the main sources of nesting urges have been seeing birds doing specific things. I heard what I had mistaken for the sound of a baby birds calling out for food from a nest and thought to myself, I should be in my nest taking care of my chicks, why am I not doing this.
I see a starling gathering twigs and grass to build its nest and am reminded that nesting building that is a thing that birds, myself included, are supposed to be doing at the time.
I briefly witnessed two smaller birds chasing a crow away from their nest and swooping at it in the sky, and think about the fact that I should be defending my nest right now instead of standing outside my workplace.
I noticed pigeons trying to nest on my balcony again and in an attempt to prevent that and the horrible mess that follows, I shoo them away and make an effort to spend more time on that balcony to clearly display this has already been taken as a home and is not a vacant nesting site.
I do not feel the urge to start up a nest at the first warm weather of spring, or upon seeing leaves growing on trees or hearing the dawn chorus in the morning.
Maybe it is how busy I tend to be as an independent adult with a full-time job or the fact that most of that stuff is usually tucked away in storage and not kept out where it is visible. It could also be that as I have no desire to raise children of my own, the concept of creating little chicks to care for does not register as very important in my mind.
Nesting urges are not something I am going to force. Shifts and bird experiences feel the best when they occur naturally, in response to my environment. There is no sense in pushing myself to gather materials every spring, watch bird nest cams and documentaries or build nests and sit in them in an attempt to create a new seasonal habit.
