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.