This spring, a small bird (a wren, we think) built a birdhouse out of twigs in a clothespin bag hanging from our collapsible clothesline in our backyard. Because he appeared to be setting up housekeeping on our property, my wife suggested we refer to him as our “wrental” (hey, hey).

He worked like a fiend, flitting from bag to lawn and back, finding small sticks all around our backyard. We live near woods, so we have lots of nature’s detritus in our yard, and it didn’t take him long to fill up the clothespin bag. When I got a closer look at his creation, his propensity to stuff the bag so full that its entrance was overflowing with twigs made me think he was the bird equivalent of a hoarder.

But after a few days he disappeared. We were disappointed and dispirited; devastated, actually. We were looking forward to move-in day and talked about how the clothespin bag was now off limits, having been taken up for a higher purpose. But days passed and we didn’t see him. I wondered what scared him off.

I did some internet research and learned male wrens build incomplete “dummy” nests in several cavities, then the female chooses one and completes it. Perhaps one look at our cramped quarters and she turned up her tiny beak.

“No granite countertops,” I imagined her (Pauline) saying, in bird chirps. “No Florida sunroom. Simply not acceptable, Harold.” And off they flew off in search of more sumptuous accommodations.

Then it occurred to me how much this aborted birdhouse reminded me of “Nomadland,” the book, not the Oscar-winning film. The movie, thanks to great acting, glorious scenery, and soaring music is uplifting; you can almost imagine yourself selling your home and hitting the road to live in the desert in a gerry-rigged van with a caravan of like-minded nomads.

The book is much sadder, focusing on the economic distress suffered by these nomads, mostly older Americans who have lost their jobs, their pensions and their homes.

Linda, the character I’m thinking of, purchases five acres of Arizona desert on which she plans to build a so-called Earthship, a shelter built largely of found objects like old tires and scraps of metal and operates off the grid with natural, renewable systems for food, water, power, heating and cooling. As described in the book, “[A] home but also a living thing, an organism that exists in harmony with the desert.”

A home not so unlike the one Harold had started in our backyard clothespin bag.

And then a small miracle happened. One day I stuck my nose in the clothespin bag, just curious, and out flew a startled Pauline, startling me. She’d returned and set up a household, literally feathering her own nest. In time, the pair’s eggs will hatch baby birds and, if we’re lucky, we’ll hear their hungry peeping. And later, if we’re luckier still, we’ll be witness to their new world introduction, education and exploration.

Pauline and Linda now had real homes of their own making, and like birds of a feather, neither was flying away.

Steven Price is a Kennebunkport resident. He can be reached at sprice1953@gmail.com.