Amy in the Garden

The songbirds and I are in agreement: Winter, such as it wasn’t, is over. Time to make way for Spring, and for me that means hanging out the real estate.

In the autumn of 2010 I made bird houses out of the decorative gourds I’d grown in the garden. I put the bird houses into service in the spring of 2011 with limited success. Half of them were attractive enough to sparrows, chickadees, and wrens to have nesting material in them. But, full disclosure, I don’t think any of them were used to completion. I never saw mother birds flying back and forth with food for nestlings.

I think part of the problem was that I hung the bird houses too late in the season. I think the industrious mothers were disheartened by my tardiness, and nested elsewhere. I also think I hung the bird houses too low and in too-conspicuous locations. I guess the mother birds were a lot like my Husband — they wanted privacy and elevation.

So I took out my gourd bird houses from last year, and set them out to appraise their condition:

At first glance they looked in reasonably good condition; however, on closer inspection:

The smallest gourd, and also one with the thinnest wall, had a crack.

Husband walked through the room as I muttered, “Dang!” He suggested that all was not lost. He pointed out that I had drilled holes in the bottom of each gourd for drainage, and so what was another crack? Think of it as ventilation. I agreed, but thought I would hang this compromised, sub-standard housing in the most sheltered area. You will see in a moment where I placed it.

The second flaw noticed was that two of the gourds had lost their wire hangers. I use wire and bend the ends at sharp angles to slip into the holes drilled in the necks of the gourds. I snipped and bent a new wire in preparation:

Then I inserted one end:

The gourd bird houses were now ready to be placed.

I walked outside to see my options for neighborhoods. The back of the house boasts a very steep hill, too wild for the dogs, and way too tough for the humans to frequent except in dire circumstances (like retrieving dogs that forgot that the hill is too wild for them):

There is a Beauty Bush up the hill that is a favorite gathering spot for songbirds. They rest there when visiting my bird feeders below. In the winter I can barely see the birds because their brown and gray feathers blend so well with the leafless branches. In the summer I can barely see the birds because the leafy branches provide perfect cover. I hope that expectant mother birds find the proximity to food (for them) and the dense cover (for the babies) to be attractive.

I struggled up the hill and hung the first bird house of 2012:

Here is the view the mother bird will have:

And this is what I will see from my vantage point waaaay down below:

As I looked about to find the next likely spot to hang a bird house, I was distracted by the moxie of a white-throated sparrow at the base of our bird feeder. Copious amounts of millet had spilled, plenty for the tubby mourning doves, elegant slate-colored juncoes, and the one sparrow. But he wasn’t having any of this Kumbayah Sharing nonsense. Spring is about Love and Love often means Crabby Behavior (ask any teenager), and so this tiny bit of alpha went after the other birds and cleared the area. I was impressed. I hope he finds one of my bird houses worthy. I bet he’s the one to start a Neighborhood Watch.

The second bird house graced the cherry tree in my vegetable garden. I needed a ladder to reach the best branch for hanging:

And here is a closer view. I positioned the opening so that I can see it from the house (making me a Nosy Neighbor, I suppose):

The third bird house was placed above what will become my Squash Garden of 2012. Zephyr summer squash and kabocha winter squash below, and….chickadees above?

And the view from afar, so you can appreciate how high I had to reach!

The final bird house was placed closest to my house — on the front porch to be exact. I did place it away from the front door entrance, hoping that the less-frequent activity would be more to the liking of an expectant mother bird. As this was the bird house with the cracked body, I felt any residents deserved the most sheltered location and the most peaceful location I could provide:

And now I wait, expectantly. (sorry)

WORDS FROM OTHERS

“A man’s home may seem to be his castle on the outside; inside, it is more often his nursery.”

— Clare Boothe Luce (American playwright, editor, journalist, 1903-1987)