Natural History Wanderings

San Francisco Stnadard reported

Thirty miles west of San Francisco, along the windswept crags of the Farallon Islands, a plump, slate-gray seabird has found an unusual home: a ceramic nest designed by a renowned Bay Area sculptor.

The nest, one of more than 100 that line Southeast Farallon Island, is the work of Nathan Lynch, a West Marin-based artist and professor who chairs the California College of the Arts ceramics program. Lynch worked with environmental nonprofit Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge to create the puffy little igloo-shaped nests, each brushed with eggshell-white glaze before being fired at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit in Lynch’s massive walk-in kiln. Some have divots for air and covers to combat the sun; others look like rigatoni or snail shells in order to mimic the shape of a natural burrow. All are built to last hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

Read more Ceramic nests offer a unique solution for Bay Area seabirds.