About 2:30 PM today, an adult female American Goldfinch flew into a  
crab apple tree here in the backyard in Norwich village and began to  
move around in the vicinity of a newish caterpillar nest which had  
been first noticed during the past week. Because caterpillars are not  
notable in the diet of goldfinches, I was curious about what was  
happening and grabbed a pair of binoculars. With the extra  
magnification I could see that she was gathering fine strands of  
caterpillar "silk" in the vicinity of the nest. Eventually she  
accumulated a wad of "silk" in her bill and then flew off out of  
sight, presumably taking the "silk" for use in construction of her own  
nest.

The caterpillar nest appeared to be that of fall webworms which have  
in previous years begun building similar looking nests in the same  
tree about this time in the summer.

Subjectively, it is refreshing to contemplate that fall webworm nests  
can be put to such "good use". The webworm nests are often somewhat  
unsightly from a human perspective and a distraction during winter  
birding when distant nests with birdlike shapes in leafless trees turn  
out not to be actual birds.

Long term readers of UV-B may recall my previous post on this subject  
back on July 17, 2011, when I made similar observations.

George Clark
Norwich, VT