were nesting

• past progressive

  past progressive

  Used to describe an ongoing action or continuous state that was happening at a specific time in the past.

  of nest.
  nest

  noun

  a pocketlike, usually more or less circular structure of twigs, grass, mud, etc., formed by a bird, often high in a tree, as a place in which to lay and incubate its eggs and rear its young; any protected place used by a bird for these purposes.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

were nesting

She’d come across one of the first 100 Blüthner pianos ever built, but it had been abandoned and damaged to the point that squirrels were nesting on its strings.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 11, 2024

The most distressing thing about the scene, Kate said, was the noise of birds, which she thinks were nesting on the island.

From BBC ● Mar. 27, 2022

Some were nesting within just a few hundred yards of Vermont.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 7, 2021

The agency hired a contractor to start dredging the shipping channel in Brunswick on May 28 while loggerhead sea turtles were nesting on nearby beaches.

From Washington Post ● May 20, 2021

But she’d focused almost all her energy on holes near the two willows closest to the stream—the same trees where the hummingbears were nesting.

From "Willodeen" by Katherine Applegate

Related Words

• burrow
• den
• refuge