I'm a bird lover, and spring time is prime time to get excited about our feathered friends. This past week I watched as robins and other birds scrounged bits of straw and other stringy things from my garden. It is nest building time!  If you've ever built a house you know the amount of time and effort it takes. Countless hours examining huge books of wall paper samples, floor plans, paint colors and on and on. So many decisions. What sort of house will it be? 

Birds have it much easier. Each species of bird only makes one kind of nest. One kind. I have often thought, when peering through a pine tree at a robin's nest, that here I am, a reasonably intelligent man with lots of schooling and degrees, yet I could never make a robin's nest that would hold together and stay in a tree, unless, o…