Here in Southern California, Spring has definitely arrived! Our nights are cool, our mornings are crisp and our days are warm and sunny… it’s lovely weather, my favorite time of the year. The squirrels come out, the jasmine blooms and the birds start collecting treasures to build their nests with.
We have a spring tradition that we call ‘Blossoms for Birds’. Each year as Spring approaches and we start to notice the birds building their nests, we decorate a bare tree branch with lovely soft wool for them. We find a branch.

Saw it to the right length for little people to reach even the top branches.
And then we put the bare branch in a spot in the garden, just beyond our deck, where we can watch it from our dining room. It’s best to put the branch in a visible place, somewhere where you can watch it, undetected by the outside creatures.
Collect a basket of spring-colored wool scraps. I let K choose any color she wanted from my precious stash.
Decorate the bare tree with the wool, winding it around the branches and twigs.
Timone, our squirrel, came to see what we were doing.
She caused great distress by climbing down our Blossoms for Birds tree, nearly knocking it over and making K very angry… “This is for the BIRDS, Timone!” K scolded.
We were able to placate her with a few nuts while we finished decorating our wool tree.
It looks so pretty, covered in colorful tufts of wool, however, a pretty tree is not why we made our Blossoms for Birds Tree… it’s for the birds to build their nests with!
All Spring long, we’ll watch from our dining room table as the neighborhood birds are attracted to the colorful wool. They’ll twitter about in a frenzy of excitement at the lovely soft wool they’ve found. They’ll take a colorful bundle in their beak and fly off with it to build their nests. Just imagine what their nests will look like… pink, blue yellow… so pretty and soft for the sweet little baby birds.I know that not many of you will have colorful wool roving scraps lying around, so I have listed for purchase a few packets of colorful wool bits in my shop. Enjoy!

Blessings and magic!

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26 Responses

  1. What a cute idea! Love it & happy to find a fellow So Cal family doing waldorf inspired homeschooling! We’ll have to try this :D We wish we had a squirrel who’d come regularly. That would really make my girls day! Blessings,
    Jen

  2. mmmmm, delicious!!
    we’ve hung bits of colorful yarn for this same purpose, but I didn’t think to hang colored roving! Great idea!
    I think we’re going to have to make something pretty to hold the wool…..
    thanks so much for the ideas!
    steph

  3. I am so going to do this!!!!

    The only thing standing in my way is the branch… Would you have guessed that branches are so hard to come by in AZ? I’ll be on the look out. I want a bird tree!

    Thank you for sharing!

  4. Oh, I love this! I’ve seen the mockingbirds in our backyard singing their sweet mating songs — I wonder if they would like some wool for their nests.

    Do you ever use scraps of yarn?

  5. What a delightful story. I love the colorful bits of wool you adorn your spring tree with for the birds. Wonderful idea. It must be so relaxing to watch the birds take flight with a bit of your wool to build their nest out of. How I wish Spring were here. Nothing but inches upon inches of snow. Ick.

  6. I’m intrigued with your shadow box collection holder over on the fence. Do you have other pictures somewhere on your blog of it and other interesting parts of your yard? I’d love to see.

  7. i love this idea – we’ve hung bits of other things out for the birds (including my daughter’s long hair!), but this would be so pretty. we have a stick house out in our back that the birds love to visit – we’ll have to try this…(as i was writing this my youngest ran out to me – mom! there are BIRDS in our yard! under the stick house – i think they’re QUAILS!!! —-they were mourning doves…)

  8. I bet you have some beautiful nests in your neighborhood and that you and K can walk around and point them out. How lovely. When spring decides to smile down on us here in the Midwest, I think we might have to try something like this. Thanks.

  9. What a wonderful idea! I love that squirrel. I’ve never thought to try to tame them. We have two that reside in our backyard and relish in making the cats crazy!

  10. what a fun idea. Bet the birds in your neighbourhood have the best nests in town!

    Hope your little man is feeling better, it’ll be so good when Spring kicks in properly and puts and end to all these bugs.

  11. More and more exciting ideas! I’m skipping around the internet looking for fun ideas for my daughter’ upcoming garden fairy birthday party. I hope the birds will join us!

  12. After being inspired by your blog, we did this last year and this year, and declared a new family tradition!

    My daughter’s teacher hosted a “family traditions” talk, so I came in to class the first week of March to share this tradition, and provided all the children a “take home” bag of wool to decorate their trees!

  13. Im very intrigued by the shadow box/shelf hanging on your fence for treasures. WHat did u use for this? Do you have other photos of this area in your yard on your sit somewhere?

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