Although you cannot see her, there is a female in the nest, busy building. It was quite something to watch her weave the long fibres into the walls of the nest. Every so often she'd settle into the nest and wiggle back and forth, shaping the nest to her body. Then back up and pulling and placing strands of grass and other fibres. This nest was unusual in that it had quite a lot of some sort of "fluff" in it. I shot a short video of her working, and it is better than this photo but still from a distance as I didn't want to disturb her by getting closer.

Sadly, the nest that was shown earlier in this blog, a strong and intricately constructed one, has completely vanished. I have no idea where it has gone, but the dried cattails that held it are also gone. The nest was close to shore and VERY visible from above. I don't know if someone removed it, or whether the muskrat ate the cattail roots, thus causing the stems and the nest to fall into the water. Very sad, however. There are two nests at present in the pond, this one in the photo, and another. Our pond, I am very sorry to say, is in a dismal state. There are so few cattails that any nest the birds make is going to be unprotected. Furthermore, there is little shade on the water, almost no protective cover for frogs and herons and other birds, and no mats of dried cattails for turtles to sit on.