I love the oropendolas. They are beautiful and interesting birds and I’ve written about them before HERE and HERE (this one with a video).  There is also a Wikipedia article HERE.

About a week ago I was riding my bike around the neighborhood and saw this in a tree near the neighborhood park – the beginnings of two nests!

Two nests hanging from the tree!

The bird is working on this one.

If you look closely you can see the other bird hanging on to the side of this nest.

I have seen and heard the birds in the neighborhood more frequently in the last couple months, but how exciting that they are setting up housekeeping only three blocks from my house. The above photos were taken on January 26th.

I took some more photos on the 31st and as you can see, the nests look much more finished. I also saw one of the birds fly to some nearby palm trees and start pulling strands out of the palm fronds, so apparently this is what they use to weave their nests.

I caught one of the birds briefly perched on the top of a nest.

The nests look much more finished now.

Yesterday I snapped a couple more photos. I think the nests are finished now, so maybe the birds are getting ready to raise some young.

Yes, those are clouds behind the nests! We actually had a good rain on Sunday and some more sprinkles yesterday.

Now it is hard to spot the birds because as soon as they land they disappear into the nest.

I know there are colonies much larger than two nests but I still think this is really cool, and I will be keeping an eye on them.