A male House Sparrow, Passer domesticus, perches outside his tangled nest. The species typically nests in and under human-made structures, but in a pinch will weave a large ball like this. 
A male Red-bellied Woodpecker, Melanerpes carolinus, carving out a nest hole cavity. I saw a couple of other Red-bellied working on holes in Prospect Park on the same walk. Sometimes, these newly carved cavities are stolen by European Starlings. Speaking of which, this is that nest hole I saw a Starling working two weeks ago: 
On Saturday, when I took this picture, the bird popped into here, then quickly came out, and flew off before I could get a shot. Note the bit of whitewash.
“Whitewash” is the polite way of saying bird droppings. The short tunnel where Atlantic Avenue dips under the howling highway of the BQE is littered with the stuff. Above, there are numerous Rock Dove (pigeon) perches and nests. Columba livia usually make minimal stick nests, so I think this is an example of multiple generations of nesting material.
Speaking of whitewash, which you can see brightly splashed over this national monument …but more on this in my next post.
Five Nests
Published April 10, 2012 Fieldnotes 3 CommentsTags: birding, birds, Brooklyn, Prospect Park
Backyard and Beyond 
I like the “whitewash” idea–and there are layers of meaning that make use of connections between sh*t and all the political whitewashing that goes on.
The political sense of “whitewashing” goes back to the mid 18th century. “Greenwashing” is dated precisely to an article in 1986. The word “ecopornography,” minted in the 1960s, never took hold. Anything you call it, though, it’s still “bullshit,” which made emphatic a 16th century meaning of “bull” as nonsense or a fraud in the 20th century.