Easter nests

Last year for Easter Sunday with the family I decided to make some nests for the table. First I collected some moss and a bundle of little twigs from our garden. Moss is actually protected here in Mallorca, so be careful if you go out collecting it! To hold it altogether I found some, not very nice looking, blue mesh netting. The moss was soaked in warm water to bring out the lovely green and covered the mesh, then twigs were intertwined to make a nest. To finish the nests sprigs of Rosemary, Grass, Genista and Bupluerum were added. The nests were then lined with a little bit of plastic bin bag, otherwise the mini eggs would go sticky and soggy! Hard boiled quail eggs were also mixed in with the chocolate eggs and were delicious.

Our Easter sunday brunch was a mass of chocolate with pancakes covered in melted ester eggs and little Lindt bunnies and eggs in the nests.

A few days after Easter when I was clearing the table I placed the nests in the grass outside our back door and my husband enquired why I had just left them there and I replied that, of course, I had left them there for the birds and perhaps they might like to use them... Some weeks later we realised that a bird was nesting, very precariously in one of our palm trees on a large frond that was dipping up and down in the wind. On closer inspection we saw that it was indeed one of my nests as you could see a bit of the blue mesh that I had used poking out. The mother bird had woven the nest into the frond to make it completely secure.

I wonder this year if there may be a few birds circling around looking for ready made nests once again! HAPPY EASTER.