Feather Your Nest

Peck away at winter doldrums with a delightful assortment of bird-themed collectibles.

-  SARAH ZLOTNICK

Time Flies

Born in the 1600s in the Black Forest region of Germany, cuckoo clocks push air through wooden whistles to produce the two-note call of the common European bird for which they are named. Most are fabricated in the Bahnhäusleuhr style or the more traditional Jagdstück style (shown here), which is marked by forest motifs. Trending again thanks to a revived interest in wooden accents, Jagdstücks from the 1960s and '70s fetch between $100 for small pieces and $1,500 for larger varieties. Clocks with working top automatons are particularly coveted.

Songbirds

18th-century Swiss clockmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz is credited with developing the singing bird box, which was often affixed to ornate snuff boxes and sold to European royalty. Over the centuries, the windup mechanisms were simplified to suit mass production, and similar singing bird music cages became exponentially more affordable. While serious antiquers shell out thousands for German-made cages from the early 1900s, casual collectors can expect to pay between $35 and $150 for players from the 1950s and '60s, depending on size and number of birds in the cage.

Words of a Feather