Dianna Hutts Aston - A Nest Is Noisy

To Danny and Melissa, and to Samantha, Madison, and Jackson. D. H. A.

To my parents, Frank and Marion Carlisle,
who successfully fledged five raucous nestlings. S. L.

Text copyright 2015 by Dianna Hutts Aston.
Illustrations copyright 2015 by Sylvia Long.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Aston, Dianna Hutts, author.
A nest is noisy / by Dianna Aston ; illustrated by Sylvia Long.
pages cm
Audience: Ages 5-8.
Audience: K to grade 3.
ISBN 978-1-4521-2713-2 (Hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4521-3343-0 (epub 2)
ISBN 978-1-4521-4549-5 (mobi)
ISBN 978-1-4521-4550-1 (epib)
ISBN 978-1-4521-4551-8 (epub 3)

1. NestsJuvenile literature. 2. AnimalsHabitationsJuvenile literature.
3. Animal behaviorJuvenile literature. I. Long, Sylvia, illustrator. II. Title.

QL676.2.A835 2015
591.564dc23
2013047998

Book design by Sara Gillingham Studio.
Hand lettered by Anne Robin and Sylvia Long.
The illustrations in this book were rendered in watercolor.

Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, California 94107

Chronicle Bookswe see things differently. Become part of our community at www.chroniclekids.com .

Many birds assemble a cradle for their eggs, knitting together leaves and twigs, and softening it with grass, hair, moss, fluffy seeds, leaf skeletons, or even a snakes old skin. They might also add candy wrappers, plastic bags, and bits of cloth or paper.

Birds are not the only animals that make nests. Orangutans climb high into the rainforest canopy, where each day they braid a new bed of strong branches and line it with a mattress of leaves and twigs. On rainy nights, a woven umbrella of leaves keeps them dry.

One of the largest birds nests is the dusky scrubfowls. Their mounded nests are made of decomposing leaves and twigs that can measure more than 36 feet (11 metres) in diameter and nearly 16 feet (5 metres) high.

The smallest birds nestthe bee hummingbirdsis a golf ball-size cup of moss, lichen, bark, and leaves, usually wrapped in spiders silk. The stretchy silk lets the nest expand as the babies grow larger.

Elf owls and cactus wrens select a prickly nesting place as a refuge from slithering snakes and other hungry hunters.

Eel-like lampreys use their suction-cup mouths to move stones the size of peas, walnuts, and even base-balls, and create depressions, called redds, in shallow streambeds. They lay their eggs in the redds, and cover them with more pebbles to hide them.

Hornets, yellow jackets, and paper wasps scrape fibers from weathered wood and chew it until its a moist paste that dries into a tough, paper-like material. The bald-faced hornet queen makes a cell for each egg.

African gray tree frogs make a foamy nest for their eggs in branches overhanging water. With her hind legs, the female churns a substance secreted from her body into a frothy mass that, in sunlight, hardens into a meringue-like crust. A few days after the tadpoles hatch, the nest disintegrates and the tadpoles drop into the water where they can feed and develop into frogs.

Gourami blow bubbles that pack together to form a nest that floats like a raft in still water. Under the bubble nest, the male and female spawnproduce eggs. Once the female has released her eggs, she swims away while the male carries the eggs in his mouth and places them in the nest. After they hatch, the baby fish, or fry, swim beneath the gooey nests, where they are guarded by the male until they are ready to strike out on their own.

Some South American ovenbirds forge an adobe oven made with thousands of mud and clay pellets. Baked in the sun, the nest is a cozy place for their eggs.

An alligator piles decaying plants and mud to create a mat. In the center she digs a hole, where she lays her eggs and then, with her forelimbs and jaws, covers the nest with more vegetation to keep them warm until they hatch as squeaking babies. The temperature of the nest determines the sex of alligators.

In spring and summer, tens of thousands of female Kemps ridley sea turtles ride the waves together onto Gulf Coast beaches and drag themselves up to the dunes. They use their hind flippers like shovels to dig a pit in the sand. After the turtle deposits her round, leathery eggs, she tamps down the sand with the underside of her shell and flings more sand over the nest to hide any signs of it.

The platypusone of only two mammals to lay eggshollows out tunnels or burrows along streambeds. With her tail, the female carries moist plant matter deep into the tunnel to make a nest and lays soft-shelled eggs the size of marbles. She adds plugs of soil in the tunnel to protect the eggs from rising waters, predators, and changing temperatures.

There is safety in numbers. Some nest-builders live in colonies, where there are more ears and eyes to raise an alarm when predatorsanimals that eat other animalsare near.

Baya weavers build nests that hang from thorny trees or palm fronds like upside-down bottles. Swinging in the air from a woven tube, each nest is protected from lizards, snakes, and bigger birds.

In towns of hundreds of inhabitants, black-tailed prairie dogs make grass-lined nesting chambers within the labyrinth of burrows. When a predator is spotted, the prairie dogs bark to warn their neighbors that danger is near.

Army ants make living nests called bivouacs. Clinging to one anothers legs and jaws, or mandibles , they form a writhing ball of millions of ants, suspended from a branch by a chain of more ants. Inside are chambers for the queen, a brood of eggs, newly hatched larvae, and food.

Cave swiftlets concoct a nest made entirely of saliva. Swinging its head from side to side, the male spits long, pearly strands onto the wall of a cave that harden into a lacy bowl when exposed to air. Birds nest soup, made from swiftlet nests, is among the most expensive foods eaten by humans.