Bird nests come in all shapes and sizes, crafted from an inexhaustible diversity of materials including fur, grasses, leaves, mosses, sticks and twigs, bones, wool, mud and spider silk. Quite a few also contain man-made materials – colorful twine, bits of wire, even plastic bags. Each one is a remarkable work of art, built with just a beak!

The film begins with a museum collection of nests and branches out to scenes in the wild all over the world where birds arrive at diverse nesting grounds to collect, compete for, reject, steal, and begin to build with carefully selected materials, crafting homes for the all-important task of protecting their eggs and raising their young.