I'll let y'all in on what is probably a little known fact about me: I'm afraid of birds.
Oh, I can admire them, their colors, their songs, even their graceful flight, but that's where it ends. I've even been known to hang out birdfeeders and watch them jockeying for position at the feeder, but I always watch from a safe distance, or with a window between us.
Why my fear? I've had too many of them swoop down on me, frightening me nigh to death, and I've developed a fear of having my eyes either pecked out or clawed out.
Perhaps it's an unfounded fear, but hey, we all have our phobias.
All that having been said...
I discovered tuesday, as I scooted along my front porch on the way to change the banner on our flag pole, that a small bird had taken up residence in my festivus tree. I discovered it when it flew out of the tree, right past my head, missing me by inches, and nearly causing me to wet myself.
I had just changed the decorations on the tree about 2 weeks ago, to the red/white/blue theme in time for Memorial day, so this was obviously a new resident.
Once my heart returned to sub-normal beating, I inched (cautiously) around the tree, looking for a nest. I was determined to rip it out and send the bird packing. Over the past couple of years, since the Festivus tree's inception, I've found the makings of nests on numerous occasions, sometimes in the early stages, sometimes nearly completed condominium complexes. They all were dismantled.
This time I found a small nest, balancing precariously on a branch. In it's middle were six eggs. Three solid color, three brown-speckled... see the picture.
I wonder if the speckles determines the sex of the baby bird?
I was now faced with a delimna... tear out the nest, and undoubtedly snuff out the life of the six little eggs, but save my tree from a certain mess? Or leave it be and allow them their chance at life, and end up with a filthy Festivus tree? I grumbled about it, asked my friend's advice, and decided to leave the nest alone.
I don't know what kind of bird(s) is nesting in my tree, but I plan on keeping an eye on the little family and photographing it's progress... assuming I can work up enough nerve tocontinue to get close to it. I'm guessing it's some kind of finch or sparrow, I admit, I don't know one from the other. I'll keep everyone posted on the progress of my new "children".
4 comments:
I am wondering, but don't know, if there are two different colors because an invasive bird (cowbird?) has laid eggs in a song bird's nest? You might want to see if you can look it up. If so, if would be good to remove the cowbird or whatever eggs. Funny, was about to post, and will tomorrow, about the nest I've found in my garage. I'll link to your post.
What's a cowbird?
I was surfing the net yesterday, & I think I've come to the conclusion that the momma bird is a finch.
A cowbird is a parasitic bird - in other words, they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. Being bigger and hatching earlier, they often get more food or sometimes even push out the birds that were of the bird that built the nest. What I read is that cowbirds followed buffalo, and so never had time to nest and developed this method of pawning off their offspring on unsuspecting parents. Now, I guess is is a question of ethics - do the cowbird eggs have just as much right to be there as the finches? Is one more worthy than the other? I don't know.
For some reason, I can't get an email to go to you, so I'll post here. I sent this days ago, just came back as undeliverable, so Insight is at it again.
http://www.wbu.com/chipperwoods/photos/cowbird.htm
http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/StratfordLandingES/Ecology/mpages/brown-headed_cowbird.htm
see photos of nest
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Molothrus_ater.html
a number of species of forest birds are now subject to increasing parasitism
by cowbirds. Cowbird parasitism may be one cause in the general decrease in
numbers of songbirds in North America. but
The cowbird eats many insects which are pests to humans.
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