Nesting Birds

Well, the spring flocks of robins are all gone, paired up, moved off to get down to business.


Everywhere I go I hear the tiny dry trill of nest-building blue-gray gnatcatchers. I know that's an unusual sentence, but I do. They say Prreeeeeep when they're gathering nesting material.


The inner bark of honeysuckle vines is great for gnatcatcher nests, and he tugs mightily to free it.
His mate has a plain face and an eyering, and she's grayer, but just as curious as he.


Out in the meadow, the tree swallows are well underway on their nest construction. They've started to line it with the white goose feathers we provide. Eggs won't be far behind.


They both try to sit on the same post near their nest box, with mixed results.


An angel lands.

Under the deck, the phoebes have been busy, making a nest on the little television relay box. They haven't nested here for two years, since a snake got the nestlings. This year, I built a better baffle, one with no toehold for snakes. Three large panes of tempered glass and a lot of duct tape were involved. She laid two eggs, then they disappeared, before I even built the new baffle. I am hoping so hard that they come back, but I haven't seen them for a couple of weeks. Why would a bird lay two eggs, then leave? There are questions I can't answer.

A billful of deer hair for the lining. She also added Hollofil from one of Chet's toys.

The finished nest.
Phoebes like a low ceiling.

The kids love to come with me when I check bluebird boxes. They especially love the road where Buck the Bull lives.

Hello, Ma'am. I made it through another winter.


So you did, Buck. So you did. Looking a little rough, but some new grass should take care of that.

Phoebe and Liam sit on Buck's gate, talking.
They love to peek in the boxes.
Sometimes there's a different surprise.
Phoebe holds a Carolina chickadee nest of moss, goldenrod stem fiber and deer hair.

The first egg. 

Chickadee mothers cover their eggs with fur and plant down when they have to leave the nest. It's very sweet. They make a little blanket that they pull over the eggs. I adore chickadees. I would love to tell you how many eggs the little hen has now, but she won't budge off the nest when I open the box, and I am not about to kick a chickadee out of her home just so I can know how many eggs there are. Still, it would be nice to know, because eggs are much easier to count than squirmers.

And what of Gouty, the female bluebird who overindulged in Zick Dough last winter and spring?
Well, she's fine, and her feet show no traces of swelling, but she does have stiff middle toes, which stick out in this picture. I've all but stopped feeding suet dough for the spring. Just a snack in the morning.

Gouty's got four daughters about a week away from fledging in the same box she used the last two years.

Here's Whiskers, named for her dark malar stripes, knee -deep in Zick dough. She's got five babies all but fledged in the box by our vegetable garden. 

And the chipping sparrows are trilling everywhere you turn.

Whatcha Doin' Up There?

Snowy gray days, up in the tower, writing. I can see the birds and they can see me. For years, they've come to see me when I'm sitting up here. They know I'm the person who fills the feeders. The suet dough feeder, in particular.

Suet dough is expensive enough to make, in both cents and elbow grease, so that I don't put a whole lot out at one time. Should a flock of starlings happen through, I don't want half a batch to disappear down their greedy throats. So I put it out a couple of handfuls at a time throughout the day, especially when I see bluebirds. The bluebirds know this. We're in tune with each other.

The downy woodpeckers know it, too. They come and sit on the top of the chimney and stare at me until they get my attention.

Hello. It's Zick, right? Yes. It's me, Downy. We've met at the feeder. Well. Ahem. The suet dough is gone. That stuff you make for us. It's gone. I'm just sayin'.
Even little Snowflake, the leucistic junco, came up to check in with me. She's hooked on suet dough. We think this is her second year with us, but she's whiter than she was last year. See Bill of the Birds' nice pictures of her both this year and last year.
Of all the birds, the bluebirds are the most shameless beggars. They line up, all eight of them, on the gutters.They clean up the dough in the dish, and then they fly up to the high ridgepole where they close in to control me with their minds.Hello. We enjoy your hospitality, and the food you serve. Now bring more of it. Please.

The fame of your Suet Dough has spread far and wide in Bluebird Land. We have brought our best friends to your fine establishment today. Please do not disappoint them. Are you almost done with that sandhill crane chapter?

Mether. I do not like it when you leave our tower fort to go put out more suet dough. I think you pay entirely too much attention to those bluebirds. You need to at least finish a paragraph before you run down the stairs again. There is someone else here with needs, too. And it is me.In the interest of full disclosure, the photographer rolled Chet Baker's cutelip out before taking the picture. Folded ears were original equipment. Actually, I used to roll his cutelip out. Now what I have to do is tuck his dangling manly jowls in.

And, because some Janie-come-lately is gonna ask, sure as death and taxes:

Zick's Suet Dough

Melt 1 cup peanut butter
with 1 cup lard

(the microwave works great).
Wal-Mart sells lard in big green and white tubs, and yellow cornmeal in big 5 lb. bags, as well as cheap quick oats and flour. Mix dry ingredients separately:

2 cups yellow cornmeal
2 cups quick oats
1 cup flour.

Stir melted lard/peanut butter mixture into dry ingredients.

Allow to cool, and serve crumbled in an open dish. Store in jars at room temperature. Nice measuring tip: A 40 oz. jar of peanut butter holds five cups. Empty out a jar, then pack it with lard to measure five cups of that. Easier than measuring individual cups, the most onerous part of making it in bulk. Don't be tempted to guesstimate amounts, or you'll get a greasy mess.
I make this recipe, sextupled, using the biggest lobster pot I own, every couple of weeks. What I get in return is a never-ending guilt trip from eight bluebirds and sundry other zillions of birds. It's a problem that only compounds.

Hanging On to Fall

Fall warblers—all but gone. A few yellow-rumps, maybe a late palm... I miss them already. Well, we did pull black-throated green, palm, yellow-rumped and Tennessee out of our hats at the Big Sit, but you have to be looking hard and close to see even that much now.

One of my favorite fall warblers is the chestnut-sided. Oh, what a gorgeous lime-green on its back, such a clean gray on its underparts, a surprised little white eye ring and yellow wing bars to top it all off. For those who know the chestnut-side, its posture is distinctive—it often cocks its tail like a wren, drooping its wings and hopping springily along branches as it gleans the undersides of leaves. This one cocked its tail as it inspected the Bird Spa, and I knew, from its clean green coat and cocked tail, what it was without picking up the binoculars. This is a pose I believe I'll use in a painting someday. Warbler poses don't get much better than this. It’s such a revelation when you realize that each warbler has a distinctive shape and style of movement, little things it does that help you identify it. It's what British and some American birders refer to as GISS (general impression of size and shape; a military term referring to airplane ID)--such an ugly word! or even worse, jizz. Blaaaa. I refuse to use either, but I will make fun of it.

Magnolia warblers are active little things, often falling off branches in pursuit of insects. In fluttering, you’ll see their largely white tails, which look like they’ve been dipped in black ink. This fall magnolia is clambering about in the gigantic leaves of our red mulberry tree. Does ya think I yam a Schmoo? I don’t know why our red mulberries (we’ve got three) are putting out new leaves in September and October, but they are. They are still putting out new leaves as I write, on October 16. You’d think it foolish to put new leaves out just before frost, but the tree seems to have a plan to grow as much as possible before it has to stop. Kind of like getting a facelift at 97...Sometimes I wonder if it’s trying to get some branches up out of the reach of the deer, which browse it back hard all winter.

This is the last phoebe of fall, sitting on the porch railing, looking for flies against the siding. Luther? Is that you, bathed in blue skylight in the morning?
Yes, the warblers and phoebes are gone, but we’ll have smooth smoky blue and mauve bluebirds all fall and winter, and they gladden my heart.
Hey, lady. Ya got any suet dough in there?

Nest Check

On May 17, I hurried out in the afternoon and evening to get my bluebird boxes checked before leaving for Wisconsin. I thought you'd like to see the life springing and burgeoning from these little wooden containers on our farm. In a rare photoglitch, brought about by an overburdened laptop, I lost all my photos of feathered young--I was going to show you how to sex baby bluebirds. I had a bunch of pictures of Lang Elliott holding Chet that vanished into the ether, as well. And some great pictures of Buck the Bull, with Chet staring at him. Rats, rats, rats. There goes your Chetfix. And your Buckfix.
Well, then, a Phoebefix. The kids help me do nest checks every week. I pick them up at the bus stop and we head down the country road where I have five boxes strung along. Phoebe's holding the nest in our sideyard here.

Can you spot the runt? Runts in bluebirds are fairly common. This one is delayed--the center bird at the bottom of the picture, who has fewer pinfeathers--but I think it will make it. There are earthworms stuck in the hair of two of the chicks--a sign that there's not a whole lot of food around. Bluebirds don't generally feed a lot of earthworms to their young unless there's nothing else around. I find it interesting that baby robins can subsist on earthworms, and that bluebirds tend to avoid them.

There were feathered babies in most of the boxes on Buck's road, and I had gorgeous pictures of their blue wings...ah well. There will be more.

The box at the end of our orchard had two five-day-old babies and three unhatched eggs. Generally, if the babies are two or more days old, and there's an unhatched egg along with them, it's safe to say that egg is not going to hatch. I took the eggs and opened them to see what might be going on. All three, infertile--as evidenced by the yellow, not red, contents. No blood vessels ever formed because the embryos never developed. Two of the eggs (top and right) were disturbingly thin-shelled, cracking like cellophane, while the bottom egg had a shell of normal thickness. I see this occasionally, and it seems to run in certain females. Perhaps she has a pesticide load; perhaps she's just young. Ensuing years may tell. This is why I write everything down.
Jayne begged me to photograph the chickadees...here's a Carolina chickadee, Day 9. Pretty cute, but nothing to when he gets feathers! Their nest is so fragile I can't take it out to photograph them all. It's a little tower of soft moss and hair, and it threatens to fall apart completely if I handle it. So I'll drag a baby out now and then for its portrait.
I wrote this post in Ashland, Wisconsin, killing a little time before going out on a kayak trip. It was 62 degrees and still when I awoke at 5 AM. A wind came in off Lake Superior, and it's dropping precipitously through the 50's and into the 40's. Yeah, I knew I'd need that parka. And looking at the whitecaps, I decided to leave the big camera in the car. Just the point-and-shoot, and that one is in some peril, I think. Bring on my PFD.

The kayak trip was great, I'm home, doing laundry (Something Different!) and preparing to melt my computer with RAMloads of bird pictures from Wisconsin. The weather here is NOT 32 and snowing, and blowing a bitter blue gale. It is 80 and sunny, just right for drying softball uniforms and socks. Bill announced tonight that he has softball practice, so he can't come to Phoebe's game in McConnellsville, a mere hour away. So now there are three people in this house with practices and games, all at different times. Maybe I'd better join a league of my own. In my ideal sport, I would meet other women to lie in chaise lounges and drink wine and eat Gouda on AkMak crackers, while watching birds at selected hotspots. While I was engaged in my team sport, I would not be able to feed anyone, pick up after them, do their laundry, or drive them to practice, nor would I be able to sit on aluminum bleachers and cheer them on, because after all I would be engaged in my very own, highly important team sport. Nightly practices, and then competitions to see who could spot the most birds. Glug, glug, yak yak, munch munch. lookit that! Anyone?

Biting the Bullet for Swallows and Bluebirds

I don't have a great big long lens--only 300 mm, handheld. What I do have is ridiculously tame tree swallows. Think they know who got rid of the house sparrows in their box? You bet they do. The female won't even budge off her eggs when I open the box. I have to lift her up to count them.

Nothing good comes without passion and hard work, I think. Well, duh, I don't think that. Lots of good things happen unbidden. Sure they do. But if you want nice birds nesting in your boxes, and you have a plague of house sparrows around, you've got your work cut out for you.

We don't usually have house sparrows around this place. But last spring I wanted to paint a brood of baby house sparrows from life, and I figured it was worth letting them nest in a bluebird box, just this once, for the painting. It's a great painting. It was worth it. What I didn't bet on was that when that brood fledged, the pair would sneakily set up a second brood in our big bluebird roost box, which can't be opened, and raise that one, too. Before you knew it we had nine to fourteen of the freakin' things chirrupping around here every morning, stuffing themselves with suet dough, and stuffing the bluebird boxes with weed stems and feathers. Oh, man, what a bed I made for us.

So I went rummaging around in my bluebird supplies in the basement and garage and miraculously found a small white sealed envelope. I opened it up and found a Gilbertson in-box sparrow trap. What are the odds. I didn't even know I had it; I was looking for the Huber in-box trap I had years ago and have since misplaced. Nothing's ever truly lost when you own as much krap as we do; it just gets covered over. Steve must have sent it to me as a gift when I ordered the last case of 14 Gilbertson PVC bluebird boxes from him. Not only is he a genius, he's a really nice guy, too.This has to be one of the neatest and best little inventions ever, made by my friend Steve Gilbertson, he of Gilbertson PVC bluebird box fame; he of the Gilwood box (a fabulously well-designed wooden bluebird nest box). It's simple, but man, does it work well. You mount it with a couple of screws on the inside front door of the box, so when it's tripped, the little tongue of flexible but strong plastic flips up and covers the entrance hole. The treadle, which looks like a wire L in this shot, hangs down over the nesting material, and the bird lands on it when it enters the box. Here , the trap is set, ready to spring when I close the box and a bird lands on the treadle.
When you see the orange dot in the hole, you've got a customer inside.

A trap like this is non-specific; it will catch whatever bird enters the box. But neither does it hurt the bird. The only thing you must be sure of is that you check it frequently, at least every three hours. I check it every half-hour. I've caught a bluebird and a Carolina chickadee this week, and they were only confined a matter of minutes before I ran up to release them. I've also caught seven house sparrows in two weeks. They were not released.

I've made dozens upon dozens of trap runs to four different far-flung bird houses on our property, but it's been worth it. We're down to one male house sparrow on the place, and he's real lonely. I hope he'll bug off soon. Why do I do it? Because the house sparrow infestation is a problem of my own making, one that threatens to negate the 15 years of good work building bluebird and tree swallow and Carolina chickadee populations on our farm. If I let them reproduce in my boxes, before long all I'll be producing is house sparrows, an imported Eurasian species that kills native nesting birds. And I do it so, instead of a scruffy house sparrow, I can see this sitting on my bluebird boxes:And this sitting on the perch post beside a box where I've trapped two house sparrows:And the lovely tree swallow and his mate, having an animated conversation about the new house that just opened up. This may be the only kind of bigotry that's really justifiable.