A Little Knowledge

We've all seen the effects of what too little knowledge can do. Never mind politics -- even in our personal lives, we have all at one time or another been the unwilling or unwitting target of somebody who had less knowledge than they claimed. I remember one incident quite clearly. I was in sixth grade, and my mother had taken me to the Dominican Republic for one of those half-work, half-play vacations. We were wandering around Santo Domingo, completely lost and simply trying to get back to our hotel. Exasperated by her inability to navigate her way through this bustling Caribbean city, my mother finally stopped by a policeman and asked for directions. The policeman obliged, pointing out where to turn and waving us off with a big smile. Big mistake. We later learned that Santo Domingan police were one of the most underpaid workers in the nation, with little, including a basic knowledge of their own city's geography, provided to them by their superiors. I'm not sure where the police officer sent us to, but after another half hour of unwanted exploration, my mother finally called the hotel and had them send someone to pick us up.

It all leveled out in the end. My mother, too, operated on too little knowledge, only learning later from a colleague that policemen in Santo Domingo expect sizeable tips for their services and that the officer was most likely not waving us off but flagging us back down for his tip. What goes around, comes around.

I recently had the opportunity to attend a birding festival in a nearby county. I was greatly looking forward to attending this event, which was being held on a Nature Conservancy site. In addition to workshops on building nestboxes, seminars, and children's activities, there would also be booth from prominent local and state birding societies, such as our county's Audubon Society and our state's Bluebird Society. I was especially looking forward to the booth run by a regional habitat organization. This group supports the stand that, if you plant native trees, shrubs, vines, and other botanical species, you will provide the natural habitat for the birds that live in your area. With Forest's Edge's multiple acres, I was eager to learn what native plants I could use for a natural yet attractive and bird-friendly landscape.

As the lady running the booth chatted to the visitors who'd arrived before me, I looked at the information table and saw a curious wood contraption peppered with holes. It looked like a miniature covered bridge, except with only one opening. The other people had noticed it, too, and asked the woman what it was. To my surprise, she informed us it was a bluebird nest box!

Oblivious to the incredulous expression on my face, she went on to explain how bluebirds thrive in a well=ventilated next box, because the breezes keep moisture from accumulating in the nest. She noted that its long, horizontal design kept predators from reaching in to grab eggs and chicks, and it was shallow, which bluebirds liked.

Although my mind was envisioning having to plug all the ventilation holes every winter (so the box could be used as a winter roost), my eye quickly noted the absence of a front, top, or side panel that opened for easy monitoring and cleaning.

"How do you monitor it?" I asked.

The woman looked at me as if I'd asked something very basic. She snatched up the next box, and informed me that it attached to the top of a 4 X 4 wooden post. When I explained that I'd said monitor, not mount, she put the box back on the table and informed us, "You don't."

"You don't?" I repeated, not believing my ears.

"Oh, no!" said the woman, who then launched into a very verbose speech about how mother birds can detect human scent on their nests, eggs, and babies and that this may cause her to abandon them; that our skin oils on the box would draw predators; and that it was best to leave nature to nature.

Still in a state of incredulity, I asked what she did to prevent house sparrow predation. Her reply? Oh, if you see them hanging around, just shoo them away, but once they've nested there wasn't much you could do.

I left that booth stunned and completely unsuccessful in convincing the woman that her facts were incorrect. Bluebird societies abide by a main tenet: an unmonitored nest box is an open invitation to house sparrows, and it is better not to put up a nest box than to leave one up unmonitored for house sparrows to occupy. Similarly, the majority of birds have no or minimal sense of smell, so mother birds would not abandon nest, egg, or chick if a human interacted with it. Most of the threatened birds, like bluebirds and purple martins, are indeed tolerant of human intervention and would not be as populous as they are now without it. Having monitored nestling bluebirds, I myself had handled young birds and checked them for blowfly infestation and other issues, and those birds were now a quintet of juveniles who loved coming to gorge at my mealworm feeder. As for house sparrows, most bluebird societies approve the use of passive and active means to deter HOSPs, as they are called, since these invasive birds will maim and kill native birds ... something I learned firsthand recently, upon finding a juvenile goldfinch that had lost its life to a territorial juvenile house sparrow who was in no mood to share a bird feeder with it.

The woman's reply to my information was akin to, "You believe what you want to, I'll believe what I want to," and thus ended my interaction with her and her organization. I later learned that she was known throughout the state for her radical views on birds. I can't help but think of all the people she has minsinformed and all the bluebirds she may have endangered because she had only a little knowledge and refused to receive more.

This unfortunately was not the only encounter with folks of limited knowledge, at least as when it comes to birds. Our town recently hosted its annual community fair, complete with demolition derbies, colorful midway rides, cattle/hog/sheep displays, and baking contests. One of the arenas held the entries and winners of the Best Collections Contest. To my dismay, the blue-ribbon winner was a young man who had entered his bird's nest collection, complete with bluebird nest holding five pale-blue eggs.

I felt it my duty as a county coordinator for our state's bluebird society to notify the "superintendents" of this particular contest that they had awarded the top prize to an entry prohibited by federal law. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act makes it illegal to collect, possess, sell, buy, or tamper with native migratory birds, their feathers, their body parts, their nests, their eggs, and their babies. The US Fish and Wildlife Service goes so far as to counsel people to look but not touch or collect, not even bird feathers found on the ground. Exemptions are available through a lengthy application process with the US FWS, but I somehow doubted that this small-town teen boy even knew what he collected was against the law.

I am also certain that, given this additional knowledge, the fair superintendents chose to do nothing, although it was their duty to confiscate the entry and turn it over to FWS to destroy. My worry from all this? Other children and teens, and even adults, will now want to show an interest in nature and will start collecting nests and/or eggs, unwittingly tampering with the breeding cycle of native birds, some of which only nest once per season and only live for two seasons.

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Silent Summer

It's eerie how a yard usually filled with bird song can seem so silent, so empty. It's almost as if something is wrong. Of course, something did go wrong, as far as my backyard birds were concerned: my family went on a week's vacation.

That's one week without the bird feeders being refilled. One week without fresh nectar for the hummingbirds and the orioles. One week without fresh grape jelly or bark butter. One week of a bone-dry bird bath, its Water Wiggler spinning mindlessly despite the lack of liquid.

At least the blackbird bunch is gone.

But other birds are also notably absent. Upon checking the little wren's nest box yesterday, I found a flattened nest, heavily decorated with bird droppings: the sign of a successful fledgling. All five baby wrens are out now, somewhere in the woods being taught how to hunt for insects by their mom. While I'm happy that the wrens successfully left the nest, I'm sad that I missed their fledging... by just a few days, if my records are correct.

The orioles also seem to have moved on. This is prime migration time for them, as they head down from the harvested orchards up north to the more fruitful states of the south. It doesn't help that someone -- a blackbird or a jay, perhaps? -- knocked the oriole feeder off its hanger. I'll be fixing that, but it might be too late.

Two of the hummingbird feeders also tumbled off their hooks. Since it is close to fledging time for the hummer girls and their nestlings, I'm hopeful that these jewel-colored birds will at least return once I clean and restock their feeders.

As for my bluebirds, they had already fledged and were just starting to come to the feeder when we left. The feeder is still on its shepherd's crook, empty. I wonder if any of the bluebirds will return once I refill it. I'm hoping to catch them at least once more, if not persuade them to roost over during the cold season.

There was one sign that all had not left yet. When the rained cleared up yesterday afternoon, a quintet of barn swallows appeared on the front yard, whirling and swooping away in their usual acrobatic antics. Barn swallows never fail to put a smile on my face, and I'm taking it as a positive omen that these birds are still around. If these insect eaters are still here, perhaps the wrens and bluebirds are as well. As for my seed and nectar eaters, I guess I'll know soon enough.

Mischief Makers

The little wren nesting in one of my bluebird trail boxes was in a tizzy. Chittering loudly, she fluttered above her nest box, trying her best to scare away an intruder. I quickly stepped out to look. Was it a raccoon? A bull snake? A cat? Something that had somehow learned that, within that box, five baby wrens were curled up against each other, asleep?

My approach instantly frightened away the invader, although not the finches and other songbirds who've grown accustomed to me over the months. No hungry mammal or reptile had the little wren spooked. No, it was something more menacing, at least in my eyes. It was a red-winged blackbird.

Summer is drawing to a close, but the red-winged blackbirds and their cohorts -- the grackles and crows -- seem to be stepping up the mischief making rather than toning things down in preparation for their southbound journey. Over the weeks, I'd watched their numbers increase, rather than decrease. One morning, instead of a dozen or two blackbirds pecking at the insects in our lawn, I counted 133 of them.

For at least that reason, summer's end cannot come fast enough.

There have been three occasions in which I've strolled along my bluebird trail and caught sight of a bird peeking into the entrance. The first two times, I lifted up my binoculars in hopes of sighting a bluebird looking for a nesting place for a third summer brood. Each time, it turned out to be a silly blackbird or grackle, trying to get inside the nest box, regardless of the fact that there was no way it would fit through the entrance. The third time, I didn't bother to look. I knew it was a blackbird.

Blackbirds -- specifically, the female red-winged blackbirds -- continue to get trapped inside our repeating sparrow trap. I stopped baiting it about three weeks ago, and still those nosy blackbirds get trapped inside. I'm starting to think that the grackles are daring the blackbirds to go check out that wire-and-wood contraption, then secretly laughing behind their wings.

Blackbirds -- this time, specifically the male blackbirds -- are responsible for gobbling up the bark butter I've started setting out for the titmice and chickadees. Just this morning, I watched a little chickadee hop its way along our deck rail onto the bark butter feeder, just to discover that most of that tasty bird mixture had been devoured just after dawn by the blackbirds.

Blackbirds -- and grackles, too -- have been emptying my sunflower seed and peanut feeders faster than I can fill them. I discontinued the ground feeder because of them. I'm loathe to take away any of the hanging feeders, not when that might mean not seeing the songbirds and little migratory birds just arriving in this area on their way south.

"Why don't we just trap or shoot them?" J asks, seeing my annoyed expression as yet another blackbird lands on the thistle feeder, scaring away the dozen goldfinches that had gathered there to feast.

"We can't... they're protected birds," I reply, rapping on the kitchen window to scare away the blackbird and noting that this method of shooing them away is becoming less and less effective.

"Who's going to know? I won't tell anyone!" J says.

While it's tempting -- our acreage freed from these pesky menaces -- I know that it's not the correct, or legal approach. I've tried all the recommended ways of dissuading blackbirds, short of taking down my feeders. Just a few more weeks, I tell myself, and then they'll be someone else's problem, someone further south.

In the meantime, I'm off to pick up the oriole feeder that the blackbirds once again knocked off the hanger while attempting to drink the nectar inside.

Rapt-ure

A broad-winged hawk was sitting at the side of the road the other day. About two feet tall, with a rusty brown-and-white speckled belly and a sharply hooked beak, the hawk was enjoying the morning sun, every now and then turning its head to watch the passing motorists.

Every now and then, I'll hear the distinctive call of the broad-winged hawk coming from within the forest behind our home. The ear-piercing "Caaaaall!" often sends the little songbirds that gather at my feeders fleeing for protective cover... in the very woods from which the hawk called.

Smart hawk.

My 16 year old, M, never fails to remind me that each of the colorful birds seen at and around Forest's Edge all descended from the dinosaurs. Watching a black-capped chickadee or a sunny goldfinch, I sometimes forget facts like this, but it is always present in my mind whenever I catch site of a raptor.

Perhaps amongst the most majestic of all birds, the raptors -- also known as birds of prey -- are hunters, sometimes of fish, mammals, and smaller birds, occasionally of carrion (or ex-animals, as Monty Python might phrase it). Not a day goes by here that I do not hear the call of a hawk (in addition to the broad-winged, sharp-shinned hawks and red-tailed hawks call this area home) or see the circling dance of several raptors overhead.

According to the local nature center, bald eagles also frequent this part of the state, but I have yet to see one in the wild... unless you count M's bald-eagle kite, which also tends to send my songbirds skittering.

Daily, however, the sight of two or more raptors idly gliding through the air above our acreage never fails to send me running for the binoculars in the hopes that I might be able to identify these as bald eagles, our national bird, or at least one of the rarer hawks -- the Northern Harrier, for instance. Unfortunately, I need better eyes, or better binoculars, or both, because I can never zoom in close enough to see anything other than outstretched wings silently gliding overhead.

I began studying the angle of those outstretched wings, the color of the rows of feathers, the glide versus the flap, to see if I could better identify our regular raptor bunch. And bunch is indeed the term, as there have been times I've seen more than half a dozen of these over our woods. Still, I wasn't able to pinpoint which bird of prey this was.

J, however, took one look and declared, "Turkey vulture." He smiled smugly and pointed at the square shape of the tailfeathers of the birds up above.

Darn it, but he was right.

Turkey vultures? I had hoped for something more elegant, more awe-inspiring, more...attractive. With its bald head (and that's literally bald, to keep from fouling its feathers at the carcasses it eats) and pink skin, the turkey vulture is not going to win any birdie beauty contests. The stigma of being a vulture -- waiting for death to come to dehydrated desert hikers -- doesn't help it much, nor does the fact that it feeds its young by regurgitating the carrion it eats. Still, I have to admire its design: talons made for walking up to its food rather than clutching it (perfect for approaching road kill); a developed sense of smell that few birds have (the better to sniff out putrefying flesh); and that clean, bald head (no mess to clean up after eating).

Nope, still doesn't do it for me.

Ah, well. It takes all kinds of creatures to make Nature work well, and the turkey vulture has its place in the local circle of life, too. With so many circling overhead during prime fledgling season, I imagine that it's up to the vultures to clean the woods of baby birds that couldn't survive outside the nest as well as weaker mammals who aren't succeeding in summer-heat survival. The poor wild turkey that was killed in our backyard about a month ago (most likely by a coyote) was picked clean within a week, most likely by a turkey vulture or two... which, incidentally, pooh-poohed the fresh house sparrows we left out for them nearby. Too little meat, too many bones, I suppose.

In the meantime, I'll keep count of our bluebird couple's chicks and, if necessary, M has his eagle kite at the ready to keep the turkey vultures from getting any ideas about the chubby little mammals (aka M's littlest brothers) that inhabit this neck of the woods. I'm sure our groundhogs heartily approve.

Seasonal Changes

Numerous birds -- or flocks, in the case of the blackbirds, grackles, and cowbirds -- have chosen to make Forest's Edge their summer home. At last count, four ruby-throated hummingbirds buzz around our feeders, playing high-speed games of chase and king-of-the-mountain. I know the females have nests somewhere in our yard, but being walnut-sized blips there's no way my eyes can pick them out.

Nor have I been able to spot the nests of the two dozen or so American goldfinches that frequent our thistle feeders, or the nests of their house finch counterparts or the quartet of purple finches that stayed in the vicinity instead of heading further north.

The mourning doves make themselves quite at home, and can often been seen comfortably sunning themselves on our deck in the morning and our walkway in the afternoon. Although they still tend to flee upon our approach, at least they don't take off in panic whenever I open a door.

For some of our birds, summer is a thing soon drawing to a close. Our barn swallows and their fledglings -- a good two to three dozen swooping, blue-and-orange birds -- have already started their migration back south, as have most of the birds in the swallow family. Insect eaters exclusively, they need to establish their wintering grounds and therefore need to arrive south early enough to scope out the best bug-filled places. Our oriole trio has also headed south, in search of fruitier lands to tide them over until they return this way in spring.

For other birds, this is their arrival time in our neck of the woods. This part of the state is prime migration territory, where avian species that summered over in cooler, northern climes stop for a day, a week, a month before continuing their flight south. Already we've had several new visitors. Five pairs of chipping sparrows recently joined our backyard bird bunch, with several of them bold enough to join the finches on the thistle feeders while the others steadfastly remain ground feeders, pecking at the seeds dropped below. Chipping sparrows are known to summer throughout our state but, with the exception of the cowbird-invaded couple, we had no others until two weeks ago and now it's almost as if we're swimming in the cute, red-mohawked little cheepers.

Another recent arrival is the tufted titmouse. Unlike the chipping sparrow, the tufted titmouse is a year-round denizen of this part of the state. Why it took so long to arrive here is anyone's guess. Usually seen alone, I was thrilled to see not one but two at our bedroom feeder, eating the peanuts I'd put out specifically for them. I have high hopes that the titmice might investigate the three decorative birdhouses I have out front and choose to roost inside one.

If not, then perhaps the black-capped chickadees that arrived last week will move in; the birdhouses are sized for them, titmice, and wrens. Like the titmouse, the chickadee is supposedly a year-round bird, although it first appeared at my oil sunflower feeder out front last week. There are four of them, and the kids are captivated by the cute, chubby little bird and his "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" call.

Other birds seem to simply be passing through. I've seen two tree swallows -- one yesterday, one the day before --- perching on one of the nesting boxes and, egads, the playground swing beam. Most likely they're following the swallow migration, but a part of me hopes they are also investigating potential nesting sites for next year. Tree swallows are welcome nesters, cavity birds like bluebirds. They will even defend bluebird nests from invaders like house sparrows and starlings. Hopefully more will come this way before continuing their southern migration.

An unfamiliar call coming from high atop one of the mature deciduous trees in the back forest led me to quickly snap a photo of what, to my eyes, appeared to be a yellow blob but, thanks to my camera, was readily identified as a female scarlet tanager. Scarlet tanagers prefer woodlands, and the tops of trees especially, where it hunts for insects and can keep an eye out for predatory birds. Tanagers are among the first birds, along with swallows, orioles, and grosbeaks, to leave in the fall, and this female was no exception to that rule.

Our grosbeaks, however, seem quite happy where they are for now. Known to be one of the last birds to arrive in spring and one of the first to leave, the grosbeaks surprise me, as I expected them to have left already. Every morning and every late afternoon, however, I find them perching on the deck rail, waiting to greet me, before hopping over to the safflower feeder. We have a few new grosbeaks, too: a young couple -- a King Street punk and his gal opposed to our very proper British-like couple. The young male is less plump, more streamlined, and has far fewer splotches of white on his back. His mate has well-defined white eyebrows and is also more sleek than our Mrs. Grosbeak. They also are more nervy -- when hungry, they just fly straight for the feeder, dispersing any birds that might already be there. Mr. and Mrs. Grosbeak surely must not approve. I'm sure the house finches don't.

As for Sean and Bluette, I haven't seen them in days. This in part is due to scheduling; I just don't happen to be around when it's prime feeding time for them and their fledgling quintet. The mealworms I set out for them are always gone, however. Among my To Do items is set out mealworms and then sit nearby, camera in hand, waiting for them to come eat. Last night, as I was serving dinner to my own brood, I noticed a blue blob, then another, on the bluebird hook and feeder. Grabbing the binoculars, I was surprised that it was not Sean and Bluette but another bluebird couple. I'd forgotten that, although some bluebirds do winter in our area, most also head south. This pair had undoubtedly seen the Dinner Bell full of mealworms and paused in their travels. Perhaps they noticed all the nice bluebird boxes on our acreage, and will come back to nest next spring. Sean could use a little male bonding... or rivalry in flying at my camera!

Every day seems to bring new arrivals for the season. Some, like the American goldfinch and the mourning dove, will stay here instead of travel southbound. Some, like the dark-eyed junco, the white-crowned sparrow, and the white-throated sparrow, will not just pause here but will actually stay for the winter, then head back north again. The seasonal changes do mean saying goodbye to some of our colorful summer friends, but I look forward to our new arrivals... and the long-awaited departure of my blackbird bunch (and my apologies to the poor Southern homeowner who'll inherit the 133 grackles, cowbirds, and blackbirds for the winter!).

Barn Dance

When we first moved to Forest's Edge several months ago, one of the things I looked most forward to was the different types of wildlife we'd be able to see. Our former home sat in the midst of a suburban development, surrounded by other houses to the sides and front, and by a highway on-ramp to the back. Wildlife was limited to squirrels, an occasional bunny, and -- every now and then -- a cardinal or blue jay.

The first morning here, I looked out the kitchen window and saw a bird I'd never seen before. Dark blue, with an orange belly, the bird sat on one of the two deck hooks that had come with the house. The bird perched there, happily looking out over its domain, seemingly unaware that humans now inhabited this long-empty house. I had never seen a blue and orange bird before and wondered whether this was the elusive Eastern bluebird that our realtor had excitedly pointed out at another property we had visited. After a while, the bird decided he'd had enough perching and flew away, flapping its wings and circling in large swoops throughout the backyard.

That was my first encounter with a barn swallow.

It took a long time for me to identify the bird. The three bird books I had showed nothing that came close. The bluebird was too light blue, the tree swallow too white of belly. The barn swallow looked right, except that the photo showed a short, stubby bird rather than the large, graceful swooper that I routinely found perched on the deck every morning. I was stumped. Then the goldfinches arrived.

The finches didn't arrive out of some natural instinct to investigate the new humans on the block. They arrived because I'd set out my first bird feeder, on the hook usually not occupied by my blue-and-orange friend. When the first goldfinches arrived, I was amazed at their brilliant yellow color. "Wild canaries," the books said these birds were also called. Rightly so. They were as lemon-yellow as if I'd taken a Crayola and colored them in. I had always loved finches -- they were by far my favorite bird at pet stores -- and, to attract even more goldfinches, I went and bought a finch sock, a white mesh tube that cinches closed on one end... kind of like a teeny weeny laundry bag. It came filled with nyjer seed, a skinny black thistle seed that finches find irresistible. And boy, did they! The next morning, the finch sock was literally covered by pecking goldfinches.

The blue-and-orange bird was not amused. It swooped and flew at the goldfinches, squawking at them in an odd, squeaky voice that sounded like someone rubbing fingers along the side of a wet bathtub. This squeaky call helped me finally pinpoint my feathered friend as a barn swallow.

The exchange repeated and escalated every day for more than a week. The barn swallow would start the day perched on the hook, enjoying the morning sun. Then a few goldfinches would arrive to munch on nyjer seed. The barn swallow would swoop at them, chasing them away. The goldfinches would return en masse, a dozen of them, standing up to the swallow and remaining on the finch sock. The swallow would then return with one or two friends, and they would swoop acrobatically at the finches, occasionally unsettling a finch or two but never making them all leave. Eventually, the swallow consented to sit on his hook while the goldfinches fed below him. After a month or so of this, the swallow disappeared.

I was distressed. Had the goldfinches scared the barn swallow away? I had never heard of goldfinches being antagonistic towards any bird, much less a much larger barn swallow. And I wanted barn swallows in my yard! Historically a good friend to farmers, barn swallows nest in old wooden buildings and structures, often old-style barns, and keep the acreage free from bees and wasps, the barn swallow's favorite food. With two children and myself allergic to insect stings, this was exactly the kind of bird we wanted around. I hopped online to see if there were special barn swallow houses I could put up to keep these playfully swooping birds around.

I quickly learned that barn swallows don't nest in cavities, but rather, nest in mud cups they painstakingly build and attach to old wooden structures like barns. I also learned that the barn swallows' habitat was threatened, not by invasive species as the bluebirds' and purple martins' habitat was threatened by starlings and sparrows, but by man. Man was taking the easy way out. Instead of building those old wooden barns, mankind was building metal-sided pole barns. Instead of frame houses, man's houses were now faced with brick or stone, or vinyl siding. There were thus fewer nesting areas for the barn swallow.

That afternoon, I carefully examined the entire underside of our back deck and gazebo, as well as the inside of the gazebo, searching for mud cups. I found a robin's nest and, to my chagrin, a large paper wasp's nest, but no barn swallow cups. As I searched, a pair of barn swallows landed on the gazebo roof, feasting on the paper wasps that were unfortunate enough to be flying up there at the moment. I was doubly glad: the swallows were back, and they were serving as a natural insecticide. Now, how to keep them here?

Online, I found a gentleman who seems to be one of the country's leading barn swallow experts. He reassured me that the goldfinches most likely did nothing to chase the barn swallows away: barn swallows like to hang out in large groups, and a large group of feeding finches was not going to other them. No, more than likely, we were the ones that chased the barn swallows away. He pointed out that by mowing the back acreage and putting down Weed-n-Feed to improve the lawn, we had decimated the insect population, taking away the swallows' main food source on our property. That they were back, and feeding on wasps, showed that they liked being here. We only had to make them feel welcome. He also informed me that, while nesting season was usually in May in my area, it was never too late to put up nesting cups: little wooden cups that mount on eaves, walls, etc., allowing barn swallows to line them with mud and focus on raising their broods rather than transporting mud, beakful by beakful, to their chosen nesting site.

I purchased four of these nesting cups and, with 6-year-old JTR's assistance, installed them one sunny morning. They had to be high enough off the ground so that nestlings and eggs would not fall prey to predators. I installed three of the cups on the underside of our deck, carefully screwing in their backing as JTR held the stepladder and screws for me. Each had to be at least four feet away from the other, to give nesting parents their privacy. The fourth cup I installed in the gazebo, near the paper wasp nest. With the bare ground beneath the deck as a handy source of nesting mud, I was certain that the barn swallows would move in shortly.

The barn swallows, however, had already nested for the season. My guess is that their chosen nesting spot was in the old abandoned chicken coop across the road from us, a run-down structure that wouldn't safely house a fly. Prime insect hunting ground, however, continued to be our acreage. The barn swallows' antics were a source of amusement to all of our family. Whenever 16-year-old M mowed the lawn, two or three barn swallows would circle him on the riding mower and swoop playfully at him, following him all around the yard. There were times that the swallows swooped so low I was afraid their wings would get caught in the mower blades, but always the swallows glided out of danger with seconds to spare.

In the back yard, more swallows did their aerial dance around the playground, driving Sean the bluebird to distraction as he attempted to chase them away. I could almost hear the barn swallows laughing at him as they continued to swoop and glide. The swallows also liked landing on J's fire ring, which sat out in the back waiting to be installed (something I prohibited until the bluebird babies had fledged). I could only guess that they liked the ashy mud there for their nests, or simply to play in.

Every now and then, when I was at the kitchen sink washing dishes or preparing dinner, I would look up on the gutter and see two or three long, forked tails -- a key characteristing of the barn swallow -- sticking out over the edge. Several times, I hauled out my kitchen stepstool to peek and see what the barn swallows could possibly be doing on the gutter... building a cup nest in there? No sign of anything met my gaze whenever I climbed up to look. The mystery lingered, until one recent morning when I went out to monitor the bluebird trail earlier than usual.

To my delight, the air was full of waxy squeaks - the barn swallows seemed to be out in full force! As I came around the back of the house, I was shocked to find not two or three, but close to two dozen barn swallows perched on the gutter of my house. They seemed to be just sitting there, enjoying the morning sunshine, just like my original barn swallow friend did when we first moved in. Then I saw three or four larger swallows swoop in from the field to the north, approaching the perching birds, whose mouths suddenly gaped open to receive the insects the larger birds were carrying.

I ran for my camera.

For an hour, I watched as the adult barn swallows transported food to the two dozen fledglings on the gutter. It was mesmerizing. The fledglings were fun to watch as they shifted from side to side or scrambled over one another, trying to get in the best position to receive the incoming food. One little fledgling hopped down to the deck rail in an effort to be closer to the adults (he was ignored and finally returned to jostle for position with his siblings). The adults were equally entertaining to watch, as they swooped towards the gaping mouths, every now and then passing right by and flipping over in mid air to return to the bypassed youngsters. One adult seemed to purposely ignore the gaping mouths and head for the fledglings who didn't have their beaks wide open. Some adults landed beside the babies, resting momentarily in their ceaseless hunt for baby food, taking off again after being harassed by the hungry fledglings to their sides.

I could have stayed to watch all day, but my own parental duties called. I'm not sure how long this barn dance continued, but the next day, they moved to a new venue: the pole barn facing that insect-filled field. I'm not sure how much longer I'll have the swallows around, as August -- when the swallows begin to gather to migrate south for the winter -- is just around the corner. Until then, I'll enjoy their squeaky calls and their playful swoops... and cross my fingers that they'll find the nesting cups ready and waiting for them next spring.

A Colorful Conundrum

Having successfully established a bluebird trail with a pair of nesting bluebirds -- or unsuccessfully, considering the fact that Sean and Bluette chose to nest in our playground and ignore the nesting boxes -- I turned my attention to attracting a bird that, if possible, is even more fiercely loved than the bluebird.

At least, that is what the purple martin lovers claim.

Purple martins, like bluebirds, are iconic American birds. Bluebird lovers speak of the bluebird of happiness bringing joy throughout the country. Purple martin lovers point out that the purple martin was there to greet settlers who came over on the Mayflower. Bluebird aficionados note how the species has been decimated by European starlings and English house sparrows taking over their natural nesting sites. Purple martin lovers indicate that purple martins have been even more decimated by starlings and house sparrows. Bluebird trail keepers call themselves landlords. Purple martin colony keepers call themselves landlords.

An image of two little kids, one in a blue T-shirt, one in a purple T-shirt, trying to one-up each other, comes to mind.

Despite the jockeying for position as most beloved American bird, purple martin landlords are correct. Invasive species -- most notably the larger-sized starling -- have taken over the purple martin's habitat. Martins are cavity nesters, and the birds are a family unit, nesting in colonies rather than individually. Because of the lack of habitat, purple martins east of the Mississippi now rely exclusively on man-made nesting areas, with many to the west also relying on housing supplied by humans.

Colony houses are easy to recognize. Always white to reflect the sun, a purple martin house is usually large (to accommodate several families), with separate apartments, each with its own private entrance and porch area for resting and perching. Houses can be plain, box-like structures, or they can be elaborate Victorian-style dwellings. They can be made of plastic, aluminum, or wood. Always, they are erected on poles a minimum of 15 feet off the ground, with a 40-foot, obstruction-free "flyway" in each direction to allow the martins clear access to their home. People who put up purple martin houses perform regularly scheduled maintenance visits, lowering the housing unit every couple of days, to make sure it is clean and clear of unwanted tenants (sparrows, starlings, and even other cavity nesters like chickadees and bluebirds).

No wonder they're called landlords.

I had never seen a purple martin, but seeing how I'd never seen an oriole until I put up an oriole feeder, I was determined to put up a colony house. Purple martins are insect eaters -- they eat only flying insects they catch while in flight themselves. Seeing that there are plenty of flying insects on our acreage -- mosquitoes, flies, bees, wasps, dragonflies, and others I don't have names for -- inviting purple martins to take care of our bugs seemed only natural. And with a pond just to the back of our acreage -- purple martins love skimming through water -- the only obstacle to putting up a purple martin house was my husband, J.

J had been very patient with me as I put up nesting box after nesting box, feeder after feeder. He said nothing about the bags of bird seed that found their way to our home, nor commented when a bird bath was suddenly in our back yard. His only reaction to finding mealworms in the refrigerator was to wrinkle his nose and shake his head. But a purple martin colony? This was no $30 box and pole, no $20 feeder and a box of sugar. This investment would be at least $100 if not more.

Fortunately, I have the world's best husband. One afternoon, we were at Lowe's picking up home-repair components, and we happened to pass by the purple martin items in the gardening section. J looked at me and asked me if that would make me happy. I nodded and, the next thing I knew, a pole and house were in our cart. "Like Edward to Bella, I always want to make you happy," J said, referencing the Twilight saga we were currently reading.

The purple martin house sat on our great room floor for a month, unassembled.

Why? Well, there was the time constraints. We were still mid-move from our old house, and a great deal of time was being devoted to packing and transporting our belongings, as well as towards repairs in our new home. I was inundated with work, with students preparing to test, with vendor purchasing, with administrative details. The kids were going back and forth to camp and dealing with itchy bug bites, poison ivy, and impetigo. And, of course, Sean and Bluette's babies were... well, being cute.

Finally, I knew something had to be done. With tape measure and 12-year-old son in tow, I went out to the back to find the perfect location for the purple martin pole. I wanted it to be visible from the den, from the kitchen, and from the master bath -- not an easy task, seeing that the colony house had to have 40 clear feet in all directions, plus be no further than 100 feet from our house (purple martin colonies apparently only succeed if they are close to human habitats). The house would also have to be in a place that would not mar J's carefully maintained backyard, or at least look really out of place. After careful measuring and remeasuring, I chose a spot in a natural bowl in our yard, close to our gazebo. I marked the spot with an empty Aquafina bottle, and N and I went inside.

The pole never went up. To my chagrin, I learned that it was too late in the season to put up a purple martin house. July was when purple martins were starting their preparations to migrate south for the winter. If I put my purple martin house up now, there was a tiny chance that migrating sub-adult martins might see it and consider it for next year (adults return to the same nesting spot year after year; sub-adults leave to start their own colonies). More than likely, though, I'd have to keep monitoring it all fall and winter long to prevent starlings and sparrows from occupying it or, at the very least, I could erect it but plug the holes to prevent unwanted birds from roosting there. The plugs, however, might dissuade inquisitive sub-adult martins from considering the house as a future colony. As for that future colony, purple martins return to my neck of the woods about March, more than half a year away.

On top of that, my colony house would not be very interesting to other martins unless martins were already there. In other words, I needed a decoy -- a fake plastic purple martin to attach visibly to one of the house porches. Passing martins would see the decoy and supposedly think, "Hey! There's one of our cousins on that nice house. We haven't seen it before! Let's go check it out!" Then, ignoring the fact that their "cousin" would not move one plastic feather to welcome them, they'd move in.

A more successful lure for martins is a recording of their dawn song. The purple martin dawn song is one of nature's wonders. Just before dawn every morning, adult male martins circle several feet above their colonies, singing a musical series of chirps and chitters over and over again -- the dawn song. They repeat this for quite a while (I've heard anywhere from 10 minutes to 30 minutes), and the song can be heard as far away as 30 miles, although heard by martins or by humans and martins, I don't know. The human interpretation of the dawn song is something along the lines of "Hey, isn't this a great place to live? Why don't you check it out and come live here, too?" It's meant to draw migrants and sub-adult martins to the colony, increasing its size. It's recommended that purple martin landlord-wannabes purchase a recording of the dawn song, then set up a speaker system near the colony house, timing the playback to occur every early AM.

Purple martin landlords may have more responsibilities than human ones.

I haven't bought a CD of the purple martin dawn song yet, although I know I can get one from The Backyard Bird Company. To me, rigging a stereo set up like that seemed an incredible amount of work to do, just to attract a half dozen or more birds. I did see among the store's online offerings a little all-in-one stereo box that can be set to play at specific times, however. Several bird calls are pre-recorded in the box, including the dawn song. I'll have to take a closer look, eventually.

As for my purple martin house and pole, I've returned them to Lowe's... sheepishly, since the box for the house was long-ago recycled. I still hope to attract a purple martin colony -- the Aquafina bottle is still out there -- and I know I'll have to erect the pole in the next month or so, before the ground begins to freeze solid, or I'll never be able to get a colony house up by March. Why did I return the house and pole, then? In my research, I discovered that plastic housing is the least successful of all colony housing. Aluminum housing has the best success, followed by wooden housing. Beating both of those, however, is gourd housing. Years ago, Native Americans hollowed out gourds and carved entrance holes, then hung the gourds up for purple martins to nest. Today, gourds have the best success rate as colony housing because each family has its own individual unit, versus sharing an apartment building. As the colony grows, more gourds can be added, versus having to buy a larger house and displace the existing nests. But best of all, purple martins have no problem with the wind causing their gourds to swing, while sparrows and starlings can't stand it and therefore avoid gourd housing. I just wish I'd learned that earlier.

On my "to buy" list: one mounting pole, one gourd rack, one set of gourds, one stereo box loaded with the purple martin dawn song. No doubt about it: when it comes to birding expenses, bluebird landlords have nothing over purple martin landlords.

Flying the Coop

Yesterday was a traumatic day for Sean and Bluette. One of their five babies decided to fledge.

Bluebird babies usually fledge, or fly on their own, between 15 to 18 days of age. Yesterday was Day 15 exactly.

I'm still not sure what happened, or why. I had just finished setting up the bluebirds' new Dinner Bell feeder, stocking it with both fresh, roasted, and vacuum-packed mealworms in an effort to entice them here (the last feeder, the Rubicon Recycled Bluebird Feeder, had been thoroughly rejected). Having set the feeder up, I'd headed over to the bluebirds' bird bath to clean it out and fill it with fresh water.

I was in the process of measuring out the cleaning enzyme when I heard a soft crash, as if someone had sat down in a small pile of brittle twigs. Moving carefully, as Sean and Bluette were watching me from the nearby shrub, I turned to see someone in the Dinner Bell.

It was one of their five babies.

What was she doing here, I wondered, designating her as female because she was smaller than the other four nestlings and far less blue, as well -- a fact I discerned several days earlier when I checked the nestlings for blowfly infestation. I slowly drew closer, quickly snapping a shot with my camera. It was only Day 15. Were the four other babies going to follow? Did she actually see the mealworms and choose to eat on her own? That didn't sound likely ... from what I'd read, the parents would bring their fledglings to the feeder and then feed them. A fledgling wasn't supposed to find the feeder on her own yet! Before I could take another step or another photo, however, the bluebird baby flapped her wings and took off for the tall forest in the back of our property.

Sean and Bluette were instantly after her, a trio of birds flying into the woods, with the baby at the head.

I didn't know what to feel. Amazement that this little baby bird that I'd known from eggdom was on her maiden flight into the forest, her parents right behind her. Horror that this little baby bird was on her maiden flight into the forest, her parents right behind her, trying to bring her back to the nest. Sorrow that one of the little baby birds that I'd known from eggdom had flown the coop.

After a couple of minutes, Sean and Bluette were back, alone, and I immediately knew that all was not well in birdland. The two were chirping louder than they had ever chirped at me, calling in hopes that their voices would guide the baby back to the nest. The two would take turns, one staying with the nest, the other flitting from tree to shrub to playground, chirping continually. Both Sean and Bluette kept ducking into the playground fort every couple of minutes, checking their remaining babies but looking as if they'd hoped their baby had somehow snuck back in. Sean winged back into the forest several times, chirping loudly to the baby that, finally, impossibly chirruped back in reply.

It was the sweetest little chirrup, far more melodious than her parents' anxious squawk. Sean immediately flew back to the swingset beam, perching next to Bluette, both parents chirping together to signal their location to the baby, who had never been outside the nest before as far as I knew. I stayed by the birdbath, watching the drama unfold and watching as the fluffy little fledgling glided in from the forest and landed on the playfort roof.

Sean chased her away.

I almost yelled at Sean. This was his baby, not an invading bird! It was all well and good when he chased away sparrows, finches, and blackbirds, but this was the baby that he and Bluette had been calling out to for almost 30 minutes... and he let instinct take over and chased her away?

The fledging fluttered over to the nearby shrub, the one from which Sean and Bluette usualy watched as I monitored the bluebird trail. Bluette chirped again, and the baby chirruped from the shrub. Sean started his search again, going back into the forest and, from there, to a tree on the other side of our backyard.

Bluette just sat there, plaintively chirping at the baby not 20 feet away. A few female finches landed in the shrub near the baby and cheeped at her, too, but the baby stayed put, chirruping in response to Bluette's calls.

I watched the exchange between mother and daughter, and Sean's searches around the yard and in the forest, for 15 minutes, silently encouraging the baby to hop down onto the ground, so that Bluette could join her and guide her back to the nest. What a story she'd have to share with her brothers! But the only thing that happened was that a female blackbird, perhaps curious about the commotion, lit upon one of the branches in that shrub, scaring away the finches... and the baby.

I don't know where the baby flew off to. I don't know if Sean and Bluette were ever able to find her and guide her back to the nest. I just know that, later yesterday evening, Sean and Bluette were at the feeder, grabbing mealworms and bringing them to their nestlings. When J and I took our evening perimeter walk, neither bluebird flew off or squawked at us. They just sat atop the playfort roof, watching us go by. They seemed sad and resigned to me.

Three more days until the rest of the babies would be flying, hopefully under their guidance this time. Hopefully, the babies would hang around and the whole family would fly south when the time came. Or perhaps each one would choose to go its own way. Given that my own brood would soon start fledging, off to college in two years for my oldest, I could commiserate with Bluette... and marvel in pride over how well her babies have grown.

Food for Thought

When I first started setting out bird feeders, years ago, I didn't have the knowledge or the ability to be picky. We had a small house on less than a half-acre of land in a suburban setting. I just wanted to view some birds out the kitchen window, as did my oldest, M. A large tube-style seed feeder promptly went up, with a suet feeder nearby, and I did get some birds: cardinals mostly, some bluejays, and a house sparrow or two. I was thrilled to have these birds come to our house to eat.

J, however, was less than thrilled, especially since the feeders were hung over the deck. After a few months of scraping bird droppings -- and of reminding M to refill the feeders -- our birding was relegated to the back seat.

Now that we are out in a rural zone, with the closest neighbor acres away, J has allowed me to indulge in my birding hobby to my heart's content. I'm not really sure why J has humored me with this. We still get birdie poop on the deck, though now only on the rails and outer edges rather than smack in the middle of the floor. J's expanse of endless green lawn has been dotted and disrupted with close to a dozen birding poles. Perhaps it's because he sees the pleasure watching and feeding our wild birds brings me. Perhaps it's because we don't get TV reception. Whatever the reason, I've been enjoying getting to know the feathered denizens of Forest's Edge.

My first step in getting to know the local birds was learning which feeders to get to attract them. I quicly discovered that the swooping, playful barn swallows, with their dramatically forked tails and their squeaky calls, were not going to come to any feeder of mine, since they were insectivores. Having a thing about bugs, the thought of filling a feeder with dead bugs -- or worse, live ones -- did not appeal to me at all. The barn swallows love wasps, however, so they were very welcome here.

The finches were next. My first finch feeder was a "finch sock" -- a tube of mesh netting sewn closed on one side and opened and closed via drawstring on the other. The finch sock gets filled with nyjer thistle seed (a skinny black seed that finches adore along the lines of cats and catnip), then hung on a hook. Boy, did the goldfinches love that sock! I bought a second sock for a hanger in the front yard, and was treated daily to images of goldfinches completely covering every inch of the sock, sometimes chasing other goldfinches away for a turn at the thistle.

Goldfinches creeping all over socks = very dirty socks. After washing them repeatedly over a two-week period, I decided to find a better alternative. The Backyard Bird Company offered several alternatives, including a long plastic tube with a perching spiral that wrapped around it, a jumbo, metal-mesh tube similar to the sock except with top and bottom saucers, and something called the Finch Feast: three slender tubes, interconnected via a half-dozen copper perching rods, hung by the center pole. The image showed a flock of happy goldfinches, each with its own perch, eating nyjer seed in good company. I quickly ordered the Finch Feast and was not disappointed. Not only did goldfinches come eat the seed I set out, but house finches as well and, recently, a chipping sparrow. There were days that more than a dozen finches feasted on that feeder. I still think it was a great buy -- the problem now is dissuading the female blackbirds from using it, as they're larger than what the feeder is meant for and because they frighten away the finches. Darned blackbirds! It's my fault, actually, that they now come to the finch feeder. A week or so ago, when I ran out of thistle seed, I tried out a blend called "Finch Treat" that claimed it was every finch's favorite: a blend of chipped sunflower seed and thistle. I'm guessing they meant Blackbird Treat, because the finches wouldn't even touch it, staying near the bottom of the tubes were the remaining thistle seed had pooled, while the blackbirds happily gathered to eat the Blackbird Treat. I finally dumped it out and restocked it with just thistle seed, but the blackbirds are still there. I'm hoping the goldfinches will gang up and scare them away, but right now the goldfinches are preoccupied with nesting, darned goldfinches.

My second purchase was an antiqued copper tube feeder, with removable top and bottom for easy cleaning and portals that could reverse depending on the kind of seed I wished to offer. Since I already had a thistle feeder (two, actually, as I eventually also ordered that mega sized metal feeder for the front), I chose to leave it as a wide portal for other seed mixes. Talk about trial and error! I started out with something that called itself songbird mix. All I got were house sparrows. After a few attempts, I set the songbird mix aside to use as bait for the repeating trap. I then moved onto a regional summer bird mix guaranteed to reduce the number of cowbirds, grackles, and blackbirds. The finches actually ate the mix... whenever they could get past the grackles and cowbirds. Next, I tried a fruit-nut-seed mix, which brought an even number of finches, grackles, cowbirds, and sparrows. I finally read somewhere that birds that enjoy sunflower seed will eat safflower seed, which has a bitter taste disliked by cowbirds and company. I gave it a try, and that was one of the better birding moves I've made. The house finches were back in droves, along with the grosbeaks and that grey finch-like bird I still haven't identified. I've seen a male blackbird and a couple of female blackbirds on the safflower feeder, but they've been infrequent visitors and hopefully it will stay that way.

Next came the hummingbird feeders. My first lesson and the most important one I'll share is never buy a hummingbird feeder that does not have an ant guard. That's a little moat that you fill with water. The theory and fact of this is that the ants, drawn by the nectar, will climb down the hanging pole and encounter the moat they need to cross in order to get to the nectar. When they cross, they drawn. Hummingbirds don't seem to like drowned ants as snacks, however, so it's crucial to clean a hummingbird feeder every three to four days, not only to dislodge any insects but also to refresh the feeder -- nectar can ferment, and nobody wants to watch a drunken hummingbird.

There are a variety of hummingbird feeders out in the market, many of them elaborate glass bottles in a variety of reds. Red apparently attracts hummingbirds, although I have never had difficulty with my purple or clear feeders. I gave the bottle type a try, a one-day trial as it turned out because the wind would sway the feeder, causing the nectar to shake out through the feeding portals and sprinkle all over the walkway and ground beneath the bottle feeder. Instant ant colony. The bottle feeder went back the next day. Very pretty -- I suppose I could use them as garden art, but definitely not as feeders.

The best hummingbird feeder I have is my window-mounted one. While I get an equal number of hummingbirds at all four feeders, since the window-mounted one is right beside my work area, I get to enjoy the hummers at about a foot's distance. I'm sure I'll go into withdrawal when my permanent office is set up.

The fruit feeder followed the hummingbird feeder. I had read that many birds love fresh fruit, including orioles and bluebirds. Even woodpeckers -- who inhabit our front forest but who have yet to make an appearance -- love fruit. There are many types of fruit feeders: ones shaped like the fruit being offered, ones that are simply bent skewers, some that are elaborate wood and plastic contraptions. I chose the bent-skewer model and promptly sacrificed an apple and two oranges to it. The skewer is now in my birding storage pile, to be given a shot during winter before being disinfected and offered up at the school flea market.

I absolutely love my oriole feeder, also a Backyard Bird Company purchase although available at both WBU and Duncraft. Holding nectar, fruit, and jelly, it's a banquet for orioles. I'm still toying with buying the jelly-jar feeder, which is a bright-orange collar that hold a 10-ounce jelly jar and comes with perch and hook. That way, when I'm away for any reason, the orioles will still be able to have their jelly treat.

Suet cages also were tried and put away until the winter. From my previous suburban birding experience, I knew that suet feeders were more for winter, when food is scarce and the suet provides birds with much-needed calories. WBU carries no-melt suet cakes in a variety of flavors, for those birders who wish to put out summer suet for chickadees and woodpeckers. This was my chance to bring the woodpeckers out of the front forest, I chortled to myself, hanging out a peanut-butter-and-jelly suet cake near the front. The woodpeckers wouldn't touch it. I finally crumbled it up for the mourning doves out in the back. I tried a berry-filled suet cake next, with no takers. I finally wrapped the cake in plastic and put it away for cooler weather, using the cage instead to offer the birds lint and cotton nesting material. Now that I've sighted chickadees, I've hung the berry suet cake out again out front. Hopefully, the chickadees will be happy and stay around.

When winter comes, I'm investing in a suet cage with built-in tail prop, since woodpeckers apparently like to prop their tails while they eat. Got to see those woodpeckers!

My least successful -- or most successful, depending on your point of view -- feeder has been my ground feeder. A simple tray with elevated rims that fits over a stake, it can be pole mounted to become a platform feeder or can hang as a tray feeder. Knowing that there are birds, such as the towhee, who are ground feeders, I chose to use it as a ground feeder, positioning it just outside the den window near my copper-topped oil sunflower seed feeder and, yes, my third thistle feeder. My ground feeder was not successful because I never saw one towhee and only viewed a bluejay twice and a cardinal perhaps three times. It was the most successful because it brought dozens of cowbirds, grackles, red-winged blackbirds, and a few crows, not to mention house sparrows. If I'd wanted to attract the countryside's most unwelcome birds, I'd succeeded magnificently.

Last night, I pulled the ground feeder out after creating a list of the ground-feeding birds that would come for winter: four varieties of true sparrows, dark-eyed juncos, plus the jays and cardinals. I'll put it out again in October, once the maurauding blackbird bunch have migrated.

Research told me that bluebirds could be trained to come to a feeder filled with, ugh, mealworms. From the Backyard Bird Company, I purchased a bluebird feeder made of recycled materials, with plexiglass viewing portals and entry holes so that no larger birds could bother the bluebirds as they dined. The feeder was blue, just like the bluebirds (again with the color thing!). I bought some roasted mealworms and I hung the feeder on a deck hanger. Sean came that very afternoon, perched on the feeder, pooped on it, and left.

And that was as close to getting used as that feeder came. I tried hanging it from a shepherd's crook that I bought specifically to keep the feeder near the bluebirds' nesting area, and nothing, although something got to it because I found the feeder and hook on the ground the next day. I decided to try a blue Tupperware lid, using packing tape to attach it to the beam of the swingset where the bluebird nest was. In addition to roasted mealworms I tried vacuum-packed mealworms (the next best thing to live ones!). It only took them two days to find and frequent the lid. Three days ago, I moved the lid from the swingset beam to the double shepherd's crook pole I bought, attaching it with hanging hooks, and hanging the bluebird feeder from the second hook. My hope was that they'd see the lid they were used to feeding from, then see the bluebird feeder stocked with even more mealworms, and start going to it. Nope! All the mealworms were gone from the lid, but the feeder remained untouched. I soon discovered that Sean was purposely flying into the lid to knock the mealworms off the lid and onto the ground, where he and Bluette swooped on them and brought them back to their babies. Smart birds.

Yesterday, a trip to WBU netted me a Dinner Bell: a clear, sturdy circular feeder tray with perching rim and a clear bell-shaped canopy. The canopy protected the birds (and the mealworms) from inclement weather, and it could be lowered to keep out larger birds. I hung this out next to the Tupperware lid and, success! Bluette repeatedly helped herself to the feeder, while Sean perched nearby or took a couple of swings at the Tupperware lid.

The lid is coming down this afternoon. New to the deck feeders, however, is my Bark Butter Feeder: a wooden slab with holes drilled into it in which I stuff blobs of Bark Butter, a peanut-butter like mixture for birds (not for human consumption, unless you're really starving, I suppose). There's a perch on each side, and a roof to shelter the Bark Butter. This morning, I found the feeder empty and promptly filled it, wondering who'd eaten there. I'll be watching more closely this afternoon, but at least it has joined the ranks of the permanent feeders, rather than those possibly doomed for the flea market.

Jam Sessions

I'd had my first hummingbird feeder out perhaps one week when I began toying with the idea of purchasing an oriole feeder. I had never seen a Baltimore oriole, ever, unless you count the costumed mascot for the Maryland baseball team. I knew that the male was a brilliant orange and black -- technically a black bird, although more welcome than my flock of hungry lawn wreckers. The female was quite dimorphic, not orange or black like the male or even the bland brown of most female birds, but a bright honey yellow in color. On reading up on the oriole, I learned that they tended to just pass through our area during the spring, heading north to where the cherries were ripening in the orchards... perfect breeding and feeding grounds for these nectar- and fruit-loving birds.

I headed to WBU to learn more about local sightings of orioles. Perhaps this way, I could have a feeder out for them on their path back south for the winter and get a glimpse of them that way. Both sales associates were busy with customers, so I wandered over to the nectar-feeding area where I'd purchased my hummer feeder the previous week. There was only one oriole feeder on display, perhaps reflective of the fact that I had indeed missed prime spring viewing time. It was an ingenious contraption: it held nectar, with portals large enough for an oriole's beak. There were four recessed areas for jelly, an oriole's favorite treat. The hanging rod was sharpened on one end, so that an orange half could be skewered and held in place. Orioles love oranges. In fact, orioles love orange, period. Perhaps it's because the orange color makes them feel as though they're in the company of fellow orioles. Perhaps they just like the bright color. Whatever the reason, every single oriole feeder I have ever seen is orange in color.

Wandering around the store, resisting other feeders and birding accessories, I caught part of the conversation at the check-out counter. A tall, slender man with sandy hair just happened to be holding one of the oriole feeders and was asking the saleswoman what the sugar-to-water ratio for oriole nectar was. The woman, in turn, was trying to get him to purchase pre-made oriole nectar. Having been duped into pre-made nectar (basically, sugar, water, and food coloring) myself, I spoke up. "It's one part sugar to six parts water," I told the man. Good thing I'd just read up on orioles.

"Really? Thanks. I wonder why their nectar needs to be watered down." Hummingbird nectar is one part sugar to four parts water.

"Maybe because hummingbirds are smaller and need more calories?" I suggested, having no clue myself.

"Hmm. I'll have to give that a try. My orioles have been trying to get their beaks into our hummingbird feeder for a couple of weeks now, so it was time to get them a feeder of their own." He lifted the feeder in his hand as proof.

He had orioles... now? This late in the season? He must have recognized my expression, because he shrugged and smiled. "I know. I don't even have a vegetable garden, much less a fruit orchard, but every year an oriole couple chooses to stay the summer in my yard. It's about time I show them I appreciate their visit."

Amazing. That meant I still had a chance of attracting orioles of my own. I headed over to the bird-sighting map WBU has posted on the wall by the door. Customers were welcome to insert a pushpin to indicate a sighting of a desirable spring/summer bird: red for hummingbirds, blue for bluebirds, orange for orioles. I'd already put in a red and blue pushpin for my backyard birds -- these were the pins farthest northwest on the map. To my surprise, there had been oriole sightings just a mile or two down the road from me. Not too many, though -- most of the sightings had been further south and east. Still, that was enough encouragement.

Back home, I hopped online and went to the Backyard Bird Company site to see the selection of oriole feeders available. There was a recycled-plastic number that was as large as a bird house, with little spikes to hold orange halves, plus saucers for jelly. There was a large version of a hummingbird bottle feeder, resembling an upside-down Sunkist soda bottle. There was even a "feeder" of sorts that simply screwed onto a jelly jar, allowing orioles to stick their heads in and feast on the preserves. I shuddered to think of the mess that would make, not to mention the insects it would attract. In the end, I selected the same oriole feeder I'd seen at the store, kicking myself for not having bought it in the first place.

Once it arrived, I prepared a separate nectar concoction for my future oriole guests, carefully spooned blobs of grape jelly onto the little indentations (apparently, grape is the preferred flavor for discerning orioles), then halved one of the neglected oranges in our fridge and skewered it onto the feeder. Satisfied with my handiwork, I set the feeder out on a deck hanger that was viewable from both the kitchen and the sitting room, and hoped for the best.

Two days later, a flash of orange surprised me while I was in the bathroom (which also has a deck-viewing window). I dashed to the window and was treated to the sight of a gorgeous bird perching on the deck hook. His feathers were glossy black and brilliant orange, almost neon in brightness. He quickly swooped down, pecked at the feeder, and flew off before I could snap even one shot.

This pattern repeated itself for about a week. I quickly amassed a multitude of blurry orange photographs, proof enough for me that we had a male oriole in the vicinity. Finally, one evening I decided to just plant myself by the kitchen window and wait. Not the most comfortable place to be, since it basically meant I was crouching on the counter space right next to the sink. My husband was amused by my antics, but they paid off after about 20 minutes, when I finally captured my first non-blurry photos of our oriole male. I was exultant. I raced upstairs to show the kids, who reacted with a couple of polite "That's nice" and one "Yep, that's an oriole all right." Hmf.

Several facts soon became evident. First, this male oriole was a local resident, not a migrant heading north to gorge on cherries. Second, the oriole did not like oranges. After tossing out the fourth dessicated and untouched orange half -- used more for a perch than for food -- I gave up, vowing to try my luck with oranges in the fall. Third, the oriole had an amazing sweet toooth. He would literally eat gobs and gobs of jelly. It got to the point that I began restocking the jelly every day, versus restocking every four days, as I did with my other feeders. Finally, where there was a male, there had to be a female.

I wasn't sure when oriole nesting season was -- none of my books could pinpoint this. Since hummingbird and wren nesting season was June to July, however, I decided that this time frame worked for orioles as well. Unlike my other backyard birds, orioles don't build cup or cavity nests. Their nests are pendulous -- they hang from high deciduous tree branches. This threw me for a moment, and I glared out the kitchen window at my neighbors to the south and east, whose acreage included tall, leafy trees, versus the shorter leafy shrubs and tall conifer forests of our property. Nevertheless, I figured I could help attract female orioles by setting out nesting material. My books stated that oriole lovers normally set out lengths of string and yarn -- draped over bushes or deck rails -- for the birds to collect and use to hang their nests. I'd just trimmed the cords of our den mini-blinds, so I set out six lengths of cut cord out by the oriole feeder.

The strings are still there -- the ones that haven't fallen off the deck, at any rate. Seems that I was off the mark on oriole nesting time. I still don't know when that is, but it's got to be sometime soon, since our male oriole has brought not one but two females to gorge on jelly and nectar at our feeder now. One of the females matches him in temperament: she just loves that jelly, and often comes on her own to feast. The other is much more curious, and a little bit daft. She hops around the deck, perching on our laundry hanger, on other feeders, on the deck furniture. Once, she sat preening on the laundry hanger, saw me watching her from the sliding glass door, and promptly flew at me, crashing into the glass. She fluttered off before I could get the door open and check if she were all right.

I wonder if she's related to Sean.

As the summer rushes past and events like family visits and outings loom in the near future, I worry about having the time to refill the oriole feeder. I don't want my oriole trio to leave us for fruitier (and jellier) pastures, especially if I can't restock their jelly because I chose to take the kids to the beach for a weekend. I'm toying now with the possibility of buying that jelly-jar feeder. That way, the orioles will have all the sweet stuff they could possibly want without my having to be prepared, spoon in hand every morning. And should the jelly attract a multitude of bees or wasps, well, the barn swallows can feast on those.

Meet the Grosbeaks

I'd been working in our sitting room several weeks ago, clearing out what we'd stored there so that the walls could be painted, when I chance to look out the glass doors to the deck. Sitting on the tube feeder was a bird I had never seen before. It was chubby and black, with white splotches on its back as if someone had flicked a paintbrush dripping with white paint at it. There was no pattern to the splotches that I could discern, and I wondered if one of the crows had gotten in the way of someone's exterior paint job. Then the bird turned its head to the side, and I was given a profile view of a large beak, much larger than a finch's and far from the slender beak of the blackbirds and grackle.

Of course, as soon as I took one step towards the kitchen and my bird book, it flew off. I spent the next hour paging through the book in search of black birds with white splotches. Nothing. I hopped online and Googled black white splotches bird. Some of the links led to awful medical descriptions of conditions with white splotches (how those had anything to do with birds, I don't know) while others led to more useful birding sites. Still, nothing came up that was even close to my chubby splotched friend.

I hoped that he'd be back the next day, but I waited in vain. He didn't return, and again I began to worry that some poor black bird was suffering from a paint-related condition and was in agony due to the chemicals it had come in contact with. However, my daily monitoring tours did not uncover any dead bird resembling the splotched mystery bird.

A week later, my sons and I were having lunch when JTR pointed out the glass door and said, "Hey, Mommy, there's a new bird. What kind of bird is that?" I looked out the kitchen window and saw a large-beaked bird with a white belly and a heart-shaped red splotch right over its chest. A Valentine bird! I thought. How cute! It was chubby like a puffin, with black back and wings. He stayed long enough for me to identify him: a rose-breasted grosbeak male.

According to the bird book, male grosbeaks were among the last of the spring birds to arrive and the first to leave. I'd say he was among the last -- it wasn't even spring any more! He seemed very content to perch on our tube feeder and snack on safflower seeds. The house finches that usually gathered there seemed to accept him without hesitation, too. I wondered if we were simply a stop on his migratory path north or not, and I risked reaching for the camera. Of course, he flew off. The goldfinches and house finches stayed on their feeding perches, however. They were quite used to us, and even M jumping around waving his arms at the window did not affect them in the least.

JTR was disappointed that his new bird left, and I consoled him with the fact that he might be back if he considered us a good source of food. I promised to take a photo of JTR's bird for him should he return -- a quick way to put a smile on a 6 year old's face.

One day passed, then two, then three. The chubby grosbeak must have moved on, I decided. JTR accepted that -- he's becoming quite the young birder. Then, one afternoon, as I was about to head out to refill the orioles' jelly feeder, JTR cried out, "He's back! He's back! Quick, Mommy, get your camera!"

The jelly jar almost clattered to the floor in my haste to grab the camera. Of course I knew exactly what JTR meant: the grosbeak was back.

Was he ever! He was sitting patiently on the deck rail, facing the window, as if he were waiting to introduce himself socially. Next to him perched a chubby brown and white bird with thick white eyebrows and an equally large beak. Mrs. Grosbeak, I presumed. They sat there, facing us, while I quickly snapped a few shots, then Mr. Grosbeak bobbed and, as if on cue, the couple moved to eat at the safflower feeder, Mr. Grosbeak showing his coat of white-splotched black feathers as he flittered over. Aha - mystery solved.

Their behavior immediately brought to mind an image of a well-mannered, somewhat portly, middle-aged British couple. Proper introductions, some time for social pleasantries, then dinner. Much to my amusement, Mr. and Mrs. Grosbeak followed this routine on a daily basis, sometimes alone, sometimes together: sit on the deck rail, wait to be noticed, then eat. Invariably, the grosbeaks would cast a look in my direction, as if asking for permission to begin to dine. How very proper, especially compared to our flock of American goldfinches, who simply gorge themselves on thistle and squabble amongst themselves for the best perch on the feeder. Perhaps the finches would learn a thing or two about "table" manners from my well-mannered feathered friends, but if not, I still have the summer to enjoy them... and perhaps use them as examples to my own unfeathered offspring.

Infrequent Flyers

The common grackle is not the only mystery bird to appear at Forest's Edge. Being out in the country and smack in the middle of two of the largest state parks, we get all sorts of critters, feathered and otherwise. Sometimes this drives the boys and me crazy... we want to know exactly who is visiting our feeders! You've never seen pairs of binoculars handed around more than in our household.

Take, for example, the dark blue bird that has made three appearances, and only three appearances. The first time, M and I saw it pecking amongst the gravel in one of our parking lots. The light was bad, due to rain clouds rolling in, and neither my vision nor M's can really see further than a few feet in front of us. We could, however, see that the bird was a deep blue color. Was it a tree swallow? Was it a purple martin? It was too dark for a bluebird. Before I could grab the camera, it was gone.

The mystery bird made its second appearance a few hours later, again pecking away in the gravel along with some sparrows and a goldfinch. I thought I noted some black tones on its wings but, again, before I could grab the binoculars the bird had flown off.

That was the last I saw of our mystery bluebird until about two weeks ago, when I was standing by the glass doors of the sitting room, gazing out at the backyard waiting for the orioles to arrive. A quick flash of blue passed right in front of me and, holding my breath, I turned my head slowly to the left to look. There, on the furthest deck hook -- the one holding one of our hummingbird feeders -- perched the mystery blue bird. Knowing how skittish this bird seemed to be, I tiptoed in giant steps to the kitchen, grabbed my camera, and slowly approached the window. Making a mental note to Windex the windows, which were covered in suicidal mayflies, I managed to snap three blurry shots before the bird flew off.

It hasn't been back since, but thanks to those three shots I was able to identify my high-strung visitor as a male indigo bunting. I was thrilled! Indigo buntings are supposed to be common in my neck of the woods and specifically to the kind of habitat our property offers. However, there haven't been many sightings of these beautiful blue birds. In fact, the bird sightings board at WBU only has one indigo bunting sighting listed on it for the entire birding season. I'm hoping that he'll be back, if not now, then perhaps later as the buntings start their migration back south.

Another mystery bird should be further south but instead is nesting somewhere in the vicinity of my house. N noticed it one morning: a bright red flash streaking past the window. I wrote it off as a cardinal male, not having seen it for myself. A few dsays later, J and I were working around our pole barn in the late afternoon when something red flashed right past us, landing near the top of one of our forest conifers out front. This red was not cardinal red but a richer, deeper blood red. Checking the bird book, the only alternative I came up with was a scarlet tanager, but I simply didn't remember black wings at all.

The following morning, I was checking my bluebird trail via binoculars from the kitchen when, to my surprise, I saw my mystery red bird perched on the bluebird box furthest from the house... and nearest to the nesting bluebirds. Sean and Bluette didn't seem to care that the red bird was a stone's throw away, a fact I found puzzling since Sean's favorite hobby was chasing away any bird that drew too close to his mate's nest. As I watched, the red bird left the bluebird box and went to perch on the bluebird feeder hook in the middle of the yard. Grabbing my camera, I quickly got a series of shots of the red bird perching there, on a nearby tree, and on another bluebird box. To my disgust, all the photos showed was a red blob that might possibly be a bird. Ugh. In one photo -- the one in the tree -- I noticed a second bird with the red blob. Or rather, a second blob, this one a buff tan. Out came the bird books again and, after pouring through the sections on red birds the ID was made: a male (and a female) summer tanager.

Summer tanagers aren't supposed to come much higher than the Mason-Dixon Line during the summer. How could this pair possibly be here? I posted the question, with facts about my sightings, to the local birders' mail list, hoping that someone might be able to shed some light on this situation. Several birders replied, asking for photos of the red blob, which I gladly provided. One woman wistfully congratulated me on having such beautiful summer visitors. Another woman haughtily replied that as a neophyte birder, I couldn't be confident about my identification and that it was more than likely a vividly colored house finch. I replied as politely as my indignation allowed, noting that while I might be new to the birding mail list, I was not new to birding, and that amazingly, I could indeed tell the difference between a house finch and a red bird that happened to be bigger and a different shade of red all over its body.

I did receive an email from another birder, a man who actually lives in my town. His comments were friendly and reassuring: for the past three years, he has had one to three summer tanagers in his yard during the summer. He noted wryly that, due to climate change, the summer range of many migratory birds has also adjusted and that it was best to go by what we see first hand than what a book tells us is allowable. I breathed much more easily after that. And sure enough, every early morning (about 6 AM to 8 AM) and every late afternoon (about 5 PM to 7 PM), the summer tanager pair can be seen in my front and back yards, perching on a variety of areas.

My current mystery bird has had me scratching my head for days. It, again, is bigger than a finch, but smaller than an oriole. It is sleek, not plump, and it is soft grey in color. Its beak is finch like, not long and pointed like a blackbird's or oriole's, and it has darker wing bars, like a female goldfinch. Its belly is a softer grey-white, and on the few occasions I've been able to see the bird's belly, it did not appear streaked. It likes to feed from my safflower seed feeder, although sometimes it just perches on the deck rail. It doesn't seem to mind the male and female house finches (and it is definitely not a house finch). Due to my work and household obligations, I haven't been able to sit down with my bird books and try to determine what this mystery bird is yet. N has offered suggestions: a phoebe, perhaps, or a mockingbird. I'm not sure what it is, but just in case it comes back the windows and sliding glass doors have all been cleaned so that any photos I take end up anything but indigo-bunting blurry.

Birds of a Feather

I finally understand the old nursery rhyme.

The royal chefs didn't bake four-and-twenty blackbirds in a pie because it happened to be a favorite treat of the king. They used pie as a method to get rid of all the blackbirds gathering around their kitchens, no doubt because some apprentice cook tossed out a handful or two of spilled corn instead of sweeping it up. When shooing away the feathered mob failed to work, the chefs turned to more innovative means of bird control.

That option, of course, is not open to me, thanks to the federal Migratory Bird Act, which protects all the birds that get lumped into the collective "blackbird" category: blackbirds, crows, cowbirds, etc. Not that a blackbird pie would be remotely appealing, even if it were legal. After all, these birds are the goats of the bird world -- they eat anything.

My backyard birds include a wide variety of black birds, and not all of them necessarily black. I was already familiar with the red-winged blackbird, its distinctive red and yellow shoulder epaulets contrasting brightly with its dark feathers, but I had never seen its female counterpart before. I was thus stunned to learn that the docile chocolate- and cream-colored bird I'd seen at my thistle and sunflower feeders was the female red-winged blackbird and not some unknown large finch. She acted like a finch, going as far as perching on my "finch feast" thistle feeder upside down, just like the goldfinches who eyed her warily before scattering due to the swaying motion of the feeder that her presence caused.

The male and female brown-headed cowbirds were easily identified by their coloring and their bird-brained behavior (possibly the origin of the term?). The American crow? Well known to me, thanks to Disney's Dumbo and years spent amongst the Iowa cornfields. The few European starlings that hadn't moved on after the early spring clutch stood out, thanks to their prismatic wings. But the black bird with the iridescent blue head was a complete mystery.

I first noticed it slowly hopping along the deck rail, almost exactly mimicking the moves of the local cowbird populace. It was black and similar in size to the cowbird, so I thought nothing of it until it approached my tube feeder and leapt onto the hook that held it, its talons curving around the pole for support. As it reached with its slender beak to pluck a safflower seed from the feeder portal, sunlight illuminated it, causing its dark head to shine an incredible, radiant blue.

Grabbing my bird book, I quickly flipped through the pages, finally coming upon a photo of my mystery bird: the common grackle. Common? To me, it seemed anything but. Sparrows? Common. Crows? Common. At my home, even goldfinches were common. This sleek gymnast with the metallic indigo noggin? Anything but.

The grackle turned out to be the most human bird of all, almost teenaged boy in attitude and mannerism. Where other birds would swiftly speed away at my approach, the grackle would give me an indolent stare with its oddly clear eyes, then slowly fly away. It seemed to enjoy playing ninja, scaling my deck hooks and grabbing for purchase at all sorts of death-defying angles, just to snatch one solitary seed or nut from a feeder. It was intensely curious, watching the daily male vs. male goldfinch scuffles with cocked head and eyeing the groundhogs with interest whenever one approached the ground feeder. The grackle also had a warped sense of humor (at least to me), hopping around our sparrow trap and laughing its short, cough-like call whenever a cowbird managed to get itself caught amidst the sparrows.

Except for the grackle, the entire blackbird population would rise up into the air at the slightest sound: the sliding glass kitchen door opening, footfall around the side of the house, the compost bin swinging shut. When this happened, the sky would be filled with at least two dozen birds fleeing the vicinity, just to return a moment later a little further down my acreage. There were so many of them -- most of them crows, cowbirds, and female red-winged blackbirds -- and they maintained a permanent presence in my yard, splashing around in the birdbath, perching on the playset (well, at least until Sean chased them away), hopping onto feeders intended for smaller songbirds, pecking at the grass around the ground feeder. One evening, J pointed out how the ground around that particular feeder was bare earth due to all the beaks and talons poking at it. He was right: an ellipse about three feet in diameter was nothing but brown dust and a few wilted blades of brown grass. I knew then that the blackbird bunch had to go.

Or at least, be encouraged to find sunnier -- or, in the grackle's case, funnier -- pastures. At Home Depot, I purchased a bird seed blend that proclaimed it encouraged "fewer grackles, cowbirds, and blackbirds." Unfortunately, nobody seemed to have informed the blackbirds of this; they came to the feeder with the same gusto as before. A switch to nyjer seed and chipped sunflowers -- a favorite of the purple finches -- drew a flock of voracious female blackbirds. Peanuts in the shell, preferred by jays, woodpeckers, and apparently groundhogs, turned out to be a special treat. I'm still finding peanut shells in the grass two to three acres away from the ground feeder.

Exasperated, I finally announced to J that once the ground feeder was emptied, I would put it away until the winter. Puzzled, he asked why I would do that. Didn't I enjoy watching the birds that gathered there out our den window? Well, of course I do. It's the only feeder our bluejays and cardinals approach, and the kids get a kick out of watching the groundhogs feast there (this, of course, I didn't mention seeing as J views the groundhogs not as cute furry things but as target practice). I also know that some of the summer birds we have yet to see and many of the late summer and early fall migrants are ground feeders. I sighed, suggested transplanting some sod for the bare patch, and am now continuing to try other tactics in an effort to dissuade the pesky flock from taking control of that part of our yard.

Perhaps I need a royal baker or two, after all.

Cowbird Round-Up

My backyard bird feeders had been out perhaps a week when I saw a bird I'd never seen caught my eye. Similar in size to a red-winged blackbird but a glossy black with a chocolate-brown head, this bird hopped along the top of our deck rail, ignoring and being ignored by the goldfinches and house finches feasting there. Upon encountering a safflower seed or oil sunflower seed, the bird would swiftly snatch up this little goodie in its long, sharp beak, then quickly flap away before any of the other birds could challenge it for the treat. I watched in amusement, wondering how the tiny finches and sparrows could possibly be perceived as a threat to a bird more than twice their size.

That was my introduction to the brown-headed cowbird. A member of the blackbird family, the brown-headed cowbird is considered a parasitic species. Its females do not nest like most other birds do, nor do the cowbirds raise their own young. Instead, the female cowbird will lay her egg in the nest of another bird, usually a small bird. The host bird occasionally recognizes that the egg in her nest is not her own and may dump it out, build another layer of nest over it, or abandon the nest for a new one. More often, however, the host bird will incubate the cowbird egg along with her own and, once hatched, feed and raise the baby cowbird as if it were her own, too.

The female host bird comes across like the world's best adoptive mother, but the truth is that she's being set up as an unwitting participant in a clear case of survival of the fittest. Cowbird nestlings hatch days earlier than most bird eggs do, giving the baby cowbird a head start on growing, taking up room in the nest, and making demands on the adoptive parent birds for food. When the host bird eggs hatch, chances are that the littlest nestlings -- or, in some instances, all the nestlings -- will be ignored as weak and puny compared to the cowbird nestling. In other words, the parents will not feed the tiny hatchlings or may even toss their own babies out of the nest in order to concentrate on the bigger, hungrier cowbird baby. This way, the survival of the cowbird species is secured without the cowbird female having to do a lick of work.

Not that cowbird females are particularly bright. Although much prettier than their male brown-headed counterparts -- they are a soft, dove-grey color -- the females are oblivious of their surroundings. I've had a female cowbird fly into our sliding glass kitchen door twice, and I've seen one perform amazing calisthenics in an attempt to feed from a hummingbird feeder. Every week, I have invariably had to release a half-dozen cowbird females from our repeating sparrow trap... one particular female three times! I lost my respect for cowbirds after that.

They are, however, federally protected by the Migratory Bird Act, although it's my understanding that in some states, they are viewed as badly as the Canada goose and rock pigeon. Still, this means that a cowbird cannot be hunted, its feathers collected, or its eggs or babies touched.

This never came into consideration until two days ago, when I was monitoring my bluebird trail and I heard a strange cheeping. Looking up at a nearby blue spruce, I noticed a small brown bird perched on the very tip, an insect held in its beak... and cheeping coming from somewhere within the tree. I watched the bird hop into the tree, then fly away to search for more insects to feed the hatchlings, wherever they were in the tree.

Curious, I walked around the spruce, only to find a little hatchling in the grass about a foot away from the tree, dead. The little bird could not have been longer than my thumb, and it certainly did not have much besides down and feather sheaths. It was too young to have fledged -- flown out of the nest -- early; by my estimates, it had a good week or so more to spend in the nest. What had happened?

Circling around the tree in search of the nest, I found another little hatchling head-down in the grass. I carefully extricated it from where it was tangled, noting that one of its legs was twisted terribly beneath it. As I lifted the little bird in my gloved hand, it feebly opened its beak as if to gape for food -- it undoubtedly heard its fellow nestlings cheeping -- then closed its eyes, its head lolling slightly to the right. It died right in my hand.

I was stunned. Two perfectly healthy-looking nestlings dead in one afternoon, on a trail I monitored daily. Had some predator gotten into the nest and scared the two babies into jumping out before they were ready to leave? After burying the little duo, I returned to the blue spruce and searched the crotch of every branch, seeking the nest out of which the babies had tumbled. J brought me a ladder so I could check the higher limbs, but no luck. Still, there were two adult birds perched in the next tree, cheeping regularly and eyeing my actions. The nest had to be somewhere.

When a few more minutes of searching proved equally fruitless, I gave up and leaned down to unlock the stepladder and fold it up. As I leaned, I caught a glimpse of fluttery movement within the spruce. I froze, then very quietly, I lifted a low branch. There, about 30 inches above the ground and perched on the exterior end of a branch, was a dainty little cup nest woven of dried grasses. It could have fit on the palm of my hand, it was so small. And nestled inside were two little baby birds.

I immediately realized what the problem was. One baby bird matched the ones I'd found on the ground: tiny, with fuzzy feathers shaded brown, grey, and blue and a soft grey-streaked white belly. The other baby bird looked like a plucked chicken, or a miniature turkey vulture, with a practically bare pink head and wings with actual feathers. It dwarfed the other bird, its wings and legs barely having enough space to fold in.

It was a cowbird baby.

It would appear that, in an effort to make itself comfortable in the cramped little nest, the cowbird baby accidentally knocked one, then two of its fellow hatchlings out of the nest. As I stood by, the adult birds zipped in, feeding both of the remaining babies repeatedly, the cowbird baby receiving more than its smaller nestmate.

At this rate, the last remaining host baby would be knocked out of the nest in a day or so. I resolved to include the nest -- which I identified through the photos J took as belonging to a chipping sparrow -- in my daily trail monitoring so that, should I find the baby chipping sparrow on the ground, I could put it back in the nest right away.

Sure enough, as I approached the nest yesterday, I witnessed the baby cowbird flutter and stretch, sending the baby chipping sparrow plummeting to the ground. I dove after the baby bird, catching him in my gloved hands and holding him close. I called for M, who came running to assist, having been forewarned about the bird-nest situation. M was in a panic -- he was sure that the little bird would only get knocked out again, and was quite against my returning it to the nest. He insisted I call the local Bird Center to let them know we were coming in with a baby bird. Experience, however, told me that if the parents were nearby -- which they were, cheeping away from the next tree -- the Bird Center would do nothing except counsel us to return the baby to its nest.

The baby chipping sparrow had other ideas.

As I slowly reached towards the nest to return the baby sparrow, the baby cowbird became agitated and hopped out of the nest and further into the tree. At the same time, the baby sparrow escaped from my hands and followed the cowbird in. M was beside himself, scrambling through the grass and reaching into the tree trying to catch the escapees, all the while reminding me that he'd told me not to return the sparrow to its nest.

I came to the front of the tree and spotted the bald little cowbird peeping out from beneath. In a blink of an eye, I had him safely in my birding bucket. The cowbird cheeped plaintively, hopping around inside the bucket, as M and I continued to search for the little sparrow. It was hopeless -- his feathers camouflaged him well, and he could not be found. Of course, I had to leave then in order to get to work on time; M volunteered to stay behind, searching for the missing baby. I recommended stepping away for a half-hour or so, allowing the little sparrow to calm down, then begin the search in a less frenzied manner. With the adult chipping sparrows nearby, surely the baby wouldn't have gone too far. I asked M to return the baby cowbird to the nest as well, despite the crampd condition, and to call me to keep me informed.

I returned home several hours later to find M still combing the tall grasses around the spruce for the baby sparrow. After checking to make sure the cowbird baby was still in the nest, I began the search as well, but called it off as the evening mosquitoes came out in full force. I promised M I'd start looking again in the morning.

This morning, much to my exasperation, the cowbird baby was gone. All there was to be seen was the empty little nest and two sparrows cheeping from the nearby tree.

As I listened, I heard a soft peep calling in return. With hopes high, I again started shifting aside the grasses, hoping to find a soft ball of fluff on the ground. Instead, I found the baby cowbird who, with wings far further developed than his nestmates, led me on a merry chase through the tall meadow. When I finally caught him 20 minutes later, I cupped him carefully in my gloves and considered my options. One, I could put him temporarily in the repeating sparrow trap. That way, we'd know where he was at all times. The fact that the adult sparrows were cheeping from the tree cancelled that -- I did not want to endanger the adults as they endeavored to feed their "baby." Two, I could find him a new home in a larger nest. With that goal in mind, I approached the playground set where Sean and Bluette, our nesting bluebirds, were in the midst of feeding their brood. The baby cowbird would have enough room in their nest, but no way would he be able to squeeze out of the cavity opening when he was finally a fledgling. I nixed that idea.

I then tried, with M's help, to feed it mealworms, as the little thing kept gaping. It spat the mealworm out twice, then just kept it in its little beak, unswallowed. I finally fished it out, not wanting the baby to choke on it.

There was only one solution left: return him to his nest.

I passed the gloves and the baby cowbird to M, since he'd had success returning the nestling yesterday. Carefully, M approached the spruce and, cooing to the cowbird that it had to stay put this time, he gently placed him in the nest. The cowbird, worn out from the morning's exercise, promptly fell asleep.

I thanked M for his help and complimented him on his soft touch. He nodded wryly, noting that he was going into the veterinary field and of course he understood animals. I reminded him then that if the cowbird left again, we would just leave it to the chipping sparrows to keep track of and raise their adopted son from wherever he was hiding.

This afternoon, as I went to install a bubbler on the bird bath, I peeked at the spruce. Sure enough, the cowbird was gone again.

I walked on, fine with the knowledge that one cowbird round-up was enough for me.