Is That a Bird's Nest?

There is a tree in our back yard that has this huge... thing... in it. I think it's a bird's nest. Jen agrees. Unfortunately for my bird watching aspirations I have no clue if it really is or not. It could be a big pile of trash that blew up there the last time we had some major wind. It could be a shopping bag or something. I can't tell.

I'd like to think there are a couple of winged neighbors living in a sweet little tree-top abode, but I don't know.

My questions therefore are:
1. Is that a bird's nest?
2. If it is, can you tell what kind of bird lives there just by looking at it? (I'm hoping for bald eagles or something)
3. If you can tell what kind of bird lives there, when is the best time to catch a glimpse of them?

I don't ask for much, just everything.

Here's what you do... Click on the image (preferably open it in a new tab or window so that you don't lose this page... because you never really ever want to leave this page, do you?) and go to the hosting Flickr page. Click the All Sizes button above the image. Click on the Original link. There you will see these pictures blown up to a ridiculous size and you'll have a larger view of this... whatever it is.


I wanted to include one shot that wasn't zoomed in so you can get a little perspective from the tops of the houses.


Of course the coolest part of having a huge might-be-but-might-not-be bird's nest in our yard is that it gave me an excuse to use the humongously awesome new camera. Even better, it gave me a chance to use the manual focus. My old camera would only have focused on the branches in the foreground. My new camera's auto focus did the same (I know, I tried), but with the manual I could actually almost focus on the thing I wanted to focus on. Of course I did a crappy job, but this is nature watching post, not a photo critic post.


So tell me what you think. Is it a bird's nest?