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