Nesting Days

Gardening and birding....... I can't have one without the other!  There are  days when I become so absorbed in the bird activity around me that I have to put down my trowel, make a dash for my binoculars or just retreat to a chair and observe.  A few days ago I completed a chore that I should have tended to last Fall. I took down the remnants of a string support I had put up near a porch railing for the sweet pea flower vines.  I set the strings on the ground and failed to clean up.  And this is where I found the strings this morning - woven throughout a shrub.  I had just noticed that a cardinal was doing the back and forth thing characteristic of nest building.  I followed her to her work area and this is what I found.  If you look carefully you will see the beginnings of a nest in the center of the picture.  She has worked large leaves in among the twigs.  Apparently she liked my strings, dragged them to the shrub but became daunted by the lengths of the pieces!

That sent me to my yarn scrap drawer.  I cut a few lengths to offer to the birds and hung them from two trees and from this pea support that my husband had made for his vegetable garden.

I admit to a fascination for the construction of nests. Last November my grandsons and I gathered all the abandoned nests that we could find in our yard and wooded edge.  With my identification book and what I remembered of summer activity we were able to identify most of them.  When we repeat the activity this Fall we'll see if any of them took advantage of my free yarn program.

I took time on Monday and Tuesday to record the birds I saw in the yard:

nuthatch

mourning dove

red-winged blackbird

common redpoll

chickadee

junco

goldfinch

cardinal

housefinch

purple finch

(I think I finally can tell the difference between the two birds above)

grackle

white-throated sparrow

downy woodpecker

hairy woodpecker

robin

crow

tufted titmouse

yellow rumped warbler

fox sparrow

blue jay

song sparrow

yellow shafted flicker

The way that the birds have paired up is "adorbs" - it is as if they can't bear to be far from one another, whether for nesting, feeding, flying about or courting.

Migration patterns tell me that the junco and redpoll will soon depart and the fox sparrow is just passing through enroute to its Canadian breeding range.  It won't be long before the hummers are back - they know exactly where their last meal in Ballston Lake was. Soon the Baltimore Oriole will be checking out my yard. I always try to invite him to make my yard his home by putting out orange slices but he never quite makes himself at  home here.  I hope that the scarlet tanager will remember that this is where he has made his home for several years. What a beautiful bird and............

How lovely April is!!