Peace At Last Among The Birds

The war is over.  The bluebirds and the phoebes, unlike another bipedal species, have managed to keep things just this side of lethal.

The happy result is that a few days ago the phoebes' baby fledged and disappeared with his parents, whose squeaky-hinge cries now sound a new note of urgency:  that big baby hopping around in the underbrush needs round-the-clock feeding, protection from frogs, crows, snakes and foxes, and lessons in self-reliance.  Summer is half over, and the parents have eggs to lay and another brood to raise.

In the meantime, the bluebird eggs have hatched, though I can't tell how many.  A nestful of newly-hatched baby birds just looks like a mass of heaving protoplasm, and that's what I saw two days ago when I stood on a chair and peered into the nest box.  Their parents are on the wing, catching bugs for hours on end. To deliver them, the father bird perches on the entrance to the box and reaches his head in, but the mother goes all the way inside, then turns around and flies out.

In past summers the phoebes have used the same nest to raise their second brood.  This time, I don't know whether they'll choose to brave the wrath of the father bluebird and return to the nest on the downspout.

But until then, all is calm, all is bright.

Bluebirds Vs. Phoebes, Continued

A couple of weeks ago I wrote (http://mygreenvermont.blogspot.com/2013/06/bluebirds-vs-phoebes.html) about the battles between the phoebes and the bluebirds who were trying to raise families in close proximity to each other and within spitting distance (well, upward spitting distance) of our sun porch.

I told how the male bluebird would bang his feet and wings repeatedly on our window, scarcely a foot away from where the phoebes' nest perched on the downspout.  And whenever the phoebes tried to get to their nest, the bluebird would fly at them and scare them away.  With such persistent harassment, plus endless days of torrential rain, I didn't hold much hope for the phoebes.

Their nest was too high for us to look inside, but my husband rigged up an old side view mirror on a pole and we saw to our alarm that there were eggs in there.  As the guerrilla warfare and the rain continued, I thought surely the embryos had died.  I couldn't understand why the phoebes didn't cut their losses and find other ways to give meaning to their life.

Then, eating my lunch on the patio during a five-minute sunny spell the other day, I watched the phoebes catching bug after bug in mid-air, flying to the nest, and flying out again.

That had to mean that they were feeding somebody.

And sure enough, there he or she was, an adorable, gray-feathered, yellow-beaked baby, Nature's reward to the phoebes for their courage and perseverance.  Right now as I write the rain has let up, and the phoebes are in dinnertime mode, bringing bugs to their child every few seconds.  Do nestlings, I wonder, ever get indigestion?

Inspection of the bluebird nest box is a simpler matter, requiring only that I drag a patio chair over to the flower bed and, taking care not to crush the echinacea, stand on it and peer in the hole.  The last time I looked the nest contained five eggs, each the same intense blue as their father's wings.  What chemistry allows these birds to secrete that color as if they were cartridges filled with some divine ink?

I know that if I were commuting daily to a job and coming home at night to my own nestlings the politics of bird families would have less claim on my attention.  But now that my own nest is empty I find myself living vicariously, a least a little, through the birds, participating in Nature's great drama which, for all I can see, is every bit as compelling for bluebirds and phoebes as it once was for me.

War And Peace Among The Birds

How would you like to sit in my sun room one of these afternoons, gazing out into the verdant woods while the hens amble through the tall grass and the frogs sun themselves on the lily pads?

Trust me, you would not.

You would soon feel jumpy, anxious and stressed out, and you would beg to be led away from the big windows, away from the blows and noise of the war between the phoebes and the bluebirds.

A month ago the phoebes, who in past summers would rear their broods in the front porch, instead made their mud nest on the elbow of the downspout by the window of the sun room, about five feet from the wooden nest box that's attached to the wall of the garage.  They flitted merrily from the apple tree to the nest and back to the tree, catching bugs on the wing, wagging their tails in that phoebe way and singing their rusty-hinge phoebe song.

And then the bluebirds arrived.

This is the same pair that colonized the nest box last summer.  How do I know it's the same pair?  Because the male has the unfortunate habit of throwing himself feet first against our window, over and over, day in and day out.  After a series of bangs he flies to the nest box and tweets for his mate, then attacks the window again, purely, I've concluded, because he likes the percussive effect.  (I've written several posts on this in the past, so I won't describe again our many failures to discourage him.)

Now he's back, having flown all the way from Rio or perhaps Asuncion, to his favorite nest and his favorite window.  But he wasn't expecting to find the phoebes, and they, needless to say, don't like his incessant banging on the window just inches away from their nest.

The result is war.

It's really hard to watch the little brown phoebes perching on the apple tree, wanting to get back to their eggs.  But the blue maniac is there, flinging himself against the glass, and they hesitate.  I don't blame them.  When the male phoebe makes it all the way to the roof of the garage, his enemy flies at him, sky-blue feathers glinting cruelly in the sun, and scares him away.

One hot afternoon, as the temperature reached the 90s, the battle raged unabated, the combatants panting, beaks open wide, as they flew at each other and tumbled in the humid air.  I worried that they might fall dead of heart attacks.   If merely watching the commotion stressed me out, what was it doing to the birds themselves?

Of late, though, the phoebe seems to be spending more time on her eggs, and the bluebird's window battering is perhaps a tad less violent.  Could it be that the two pairs have resolved their differences, and the little phoebes and the baby bluebirds will have a safe and peaceful childhood?

This is such a hopeful thought, on so many levels.  After all, if birds can do it, maybe there's a chance for us.

Phoebe Or Phoenix?

In the last post, I told you about the phoebe catastrophe, how I found the nest on the hard slate floor of the front porch, surrounded by three dead babies.  After that, I noticed that the parents kept flying into the porch and flying out again, which I interpreted as the phoebe way of mourning.  I hoped their sorrow would pass.

As it turns out, the phoebes weren't mourning, or, if they were, they didn't let it slow them down in the building of...another nest!  The day after the old one fell, the foundation of the new one was in place, just a couple of feet from where the old one had been.  Now the new nest is halfway finished, and the slate beneath it is covered in gobs of mud and other construction debris.

I'm not one to see moral lessons wherever I turn in Nature, but I must confess that these phoebes got to me.  I mean, what resilience after tragedy, courage in the face of adversity, optimism on the heels of abject failure!  They reminded me of Al Gore, who after the election debacle did not crawl into a hole, as I would have done, but went on to become the patron saint of contemporary ecology.

Persistence, thy name is Phoebe.

On the other hand, maybe thy name is Phool?  Didn't Einstein say that stupidity was doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results?

So I'm feeling a little confused.  Should I admire--even imitate--the phoebes for their persistence, or should I feel sorry for them and try not to look at what's going on in the front porch too often?

Meanwhile, all is well with the bluebirds, except that the parents are so busy bringing food to the nest that they actually look thinner to my worried eye.

Nest Sandwich

These days, I live sandwiched between two nests:  phoebes in the front, bluebirds in the back.  Sometimes, when I'm watching the bluebirds out the back window, if the light is just right the front window is reflected in the back window, and I can see the phoebes silhouetted against the bluebirds as both pairs flit to and from their nests.

It's not easy, living with all this bird procreation.  The phoebes seem particularly accident prone.  Every year they build their nest in a protected spot on the porch, where as far as I can see no wind or rain can reach it.  Yet almost every year there are mishaps.  Often, the nest falls down in mid-construction.  Last year, a couple of feathered nestlings fell out.  One was dead when I found it, but its sibling was very much alive, and upset.  It was a terribly hot day, so I put it under a hosta leaf and placed a dish of water nearby for the parents, who were hovering.  The entire family disappeared the next day, and I like to think that that baby survived.

This year's brood was not so lucky.  Yesterday I found the nest--carefully made of moss, dried grass, and hairs from Lexi's white undercoat--on the slate floor of the porch.  Its three occupants were scattered around it, dead.  Aside from the disproportionately large yellow beaks (put that worm right here, Mom!) they were a mass of gray fuzz.  Their lids were closed over their bulbous eyes, and their thread-thin necks were bent at odd angles.  I got the broom and swept babies and nest into the mulch.  Earth to earth...

As the sun went down the parent phoebes kept flying into the porch, then out again, until dark.

So far, the bluebirds are o.k.  Yesterday I saw both parents flying into the nest box with big beakfuls of bugs, which meant the eggs had hatched.  I dragged a lawn chair to the nest, stood on it and shone a flashlight in.  All I could see was an amorphous grayish mass, but it was moving, alive!  I couldn't tell how many babies there were, so I withdrew respectfully, wondering how the parents managed to stuff those full-sized butterflies down those tiny throats.

The most dangerous part of those babies' life is still ahead.  I'm not sure I'll be able to watch the leaving-the-nest drama.  We don't have cats around, but all manner of threats lurk in the woods, the thickets of apple mint, the sky, the pond.  The bluebirds have hatched, but I'd better wait to count them. 

Phoebe Mishap

Every summer for the last three years, the phoebes have raised two batches of babies in their nest inside the eaves of our front porch.  They make a mess on the porch floor, but that is a small price to pay for their close familiarity and conscientious bug eating.  Between the phoebes and the frogs, I have yet to see a single mosquito around the house this summer.

But yesterday afternoon I saw that the nest had fallen to the floor.  It was actually two nests, one built on top of the other, and there was a dead nestling trapped beneath them.  Right up against the wall of the house was its sibling, alive and cheeping weakly.  It was smaller than a soup spoon, all beak and new feathers.  I turned and walked away from the disaster scene.

It was the best I could do.  Even if I'd known what kind of bugs it liked, and in what quantities, there's no way I could have caught them.  It probably needed water, too, but how much, and how to give it without drowning it?  My only hope was that the parents were aware of their surviving child, and would take care of it.  I left the nest debris and the dead baby right where they had fallen, so as not to alarm the parents.  It occurred to me that the flies gathering on the little cadaver might provide some easy meals for the parents to catch.

A couple of hours later I checked again and the nestling was still alive, and cheeping louder.  I wondered how it would survive the night, away from its sibling's warmth.  I wondered whether the critters that hunt in the dark would find it, and was glad that at least we had nothing to fear from the porcupine. 

Today, he or she is still there, glued to the same spot, cheeping.  There is some poop right near him, which I'm interpreting as a sign that he's being fed.  The last time I checked he was quiet, and I had to get really close to see the tiny vibrations of his feathers.  I guess even baby birds have to take breaks from eating.

The parent phoebes are flying back and forth from the bird feeder which they use as a perch (they don't eat seeds) to the plum tree in front of the porch.  I'm sure they know their child is there.  Now I'm worried about the temperatures in the mid-90s that are forecast for this afternoon--but the porch faces north, so he will at least be sheltered from the sun.  I've put a small dish of water nearby.  It's the best I can do.

White Shadows And Other Wonders

When I woke up this morning, the fields and the yard were completely white--same old, same old--but this time it was frost instead of snow.  The sun shone brightly, and by ten o'clock the ground was the dull brown of early spring.  But on the northwest side of the house, there are three cone-shaped evergreens, and  on the side opposite the sun, three perfect white cones--their frosty "shadows"--stayed on the ground for a while longer.

Saw the first earthworm while weeding the flower bed behind the house.  Saved the tiny weeds for the hens, who fell upon them with delight.  Their yolks will soon take on that deep orange color they get when the hens feed on fresh greens.

Heard the first phoebe.  Every year they nest in our front porch and make a mess, but we don't have the heart to kick them out.

Removed the hay mulch from the lavender bushes, all of which appear to have survived the third-snowiest winter on record.  I found creeping thyme and oregano bright green and spreading under six inches of matted hay.  No signs yet of the snow-planted spinach, but I'm optimistic.

First tick of the season, too.  One of the tiny evil ones, in my arm, sucking my blood.

The dandelions are up, though it will be a while before they bloom.  I think I'll make dandelion wine again this year.

Phoebes Et Al.

The phoebes are back in the nest they built last year just inside the overhang of the front porch roof. I'm glad they're making do with their old nest, because when phoebes build a nest they make a mess you wouldn't believe, and every time somebody comes to the house you have to explain about the mud and poop.

On a less felicitous note, another bird--I don't know what kind--tried to build a nest directly opposite the phoebes, between the carriage lamp and the wall next to the front door. This bird had made such a haphazard-looking nest, mostly out of dried-out iris leaves, that I thought it had abandoned the project--until we found a bunch of nest materials and two little blue eggs broken on the slate floor.

Speaking of birds, the hens spent their first night in the chicken tractor. This morning, when I let them out, the four older birds rushed out as if the grass and its inhabitants had literally been calling for them. The three pullets, however, stayed in the little upstairs sleeping loft, in the dark, peeping. I forced them downstairs and outside and they wandered around on the grass, peeping, trying to figure out how to get back in. Which they eventually did, and rushed up the little ladder, back into the dark.

It rained a little this morning, which is good for the roses I planted yesterday. I've never planted roses before, so at the nursery I asked for the toughest climbers they had. Climbers being the toughest of all roses, mine should be just about indestructible. I got two "New Dawn" pink ones, which sound hopeful, and one "Blanc De Blanc De Corbe," which sounds like a wine.

In the rain, the two little apple trees, which have been blooming their hearts out, started shedding some petals. I'm concerned because I checked them yesterday morning in the sun for pollinating insects and found one wasp, one common housefly, and a couple of ants. Where are the bees?

On a happier note, the giant hostas that I purchased at the Rupert village library benefit last year, and that I had given up for dead, have been thrusting their scary-looking spikes out of the mulch, clearly enjoying the rain.

Who says that nothing happens at our house?

The Phoebes Win

A couple of years ago, a pair of Phoebes built a nest in our back porch. At the time, this was just a roofed passage between the house and the garage, so we had no worries about mud on the flagstones, and plenty of opportunity to watch the proceedings.

It all started with much to-ing and fro-ing and dropping of bits of mud. Overnight a cup-like structure appeared against the wall, and then there was silence. By standing on our tiptoes we could see a pair of pin-prick eyes looking out: somebody was sitting on eggs.

Our comings and goings didn't seem to disturb the Phoebes as summer went on. Eventually, jack-in-the-box-like maws popped up out of the nest whenever we went by. And the parents were always near, perching on the clothesline, wagging their tails and squeaking “phoe-be, phoe-be!”

The babies grew bigger and soon there were five fully feathered, bright-eyed Phoeblets sticking out of the nest. And then they were gone.

The next year, they came back. By then we had enclosed the back porch, so they tried to nest in the front porch. They made such a mess of mud and droppings, however, that we strung up a length of fishing line just inside the eave to discourage them, and it worked. I felt a little mean, but I enjoyed the clean porch.

This spring, they returned. Who knew where they had been, and what trouble they had gone to to find us? Since they weren't trying to nest directly in the way of the front door, we decided to let them stay.

They built their usual neat nest, and then seemed to disappear. I thought that maybe our attempt to inhibit them last year had succeeded again. But in the last couple of days I've seen a bird on the nest. Something is clearly going on, and I am rejoicing.

It's not just the bird on the nest that encourages me. At all times of day, in the trees and bushes in front of the porch I can spot a Phoebe, husband or wife, with its slightly disheveled looks and wagging tail, waiting for me to get out of the way so it can get on with its parental responsibilities.

There are white droppings on the porch slate floor. Whenever we go in or out, a pair of shiny eyes marks our every move. I love it that the little family likes us so much, and that we have shelter, and plenty of bugs, for it to prosper on.