Between the raptors circling above our house using thermals and hummingbirds frenetically zipping between flowers, our gardens are chirping with birds. This year, in particular, we have been hosting a wide variety of fledging birds in too many nests to count.
Woodpeckers took over the top of a sugar maple whose upper branches had died. They drilled many holes and created a variety of lairs. This past Spring, the suet feeder had a line of these birds waiting their turn to clean out the suet each day. A recent storm snapped one of the larger branches holding a nest that we have repurposed on a fence post.
Keeping the garage door open has not been a good idea as wrens and robins have attempted to build nests inside. I had to remove bits of a starter nest from our pantry shelves and found a partially completed nest in the basket where I keep extra gardening gloves.
That has not stopped a Carolina wren from setting up house for multiple clutches of eggs in a decorative bird house by the back door of the garage. Whenever approached, the homesteader flies out protesting noisely.
Inspecting a dwarf Alberta spruce by the driveway, we find a tiny nest with a single tiny egg. No sign of the parent. And finally, I was watering a hanging plant a week ago and all of a sudden a quartet of plump, baby birds jumped out of the planter and tried to scamper away. I carefully tried to return them to the nest but they kept jumping out. Soon the parents returned, mobbing me as I placed their children back into their home. The next day, there was no sign of any inhabitants.
