You can get yourself into trouble sometimes if you believe your own hot air (politicians, take note). I had just finished writing about how mating season was mostly over for the birds, so I decided to clean out my bluebird houses.
The first one has had any number of sparrow families nest in it this year and it was filled nearly to the top with nesting material. Feathers from God only knows how many species of birds, leaves, straw, grass, pieces of plastic bags—you name it. I suspect each successive family didn’t bother to clean up what the last outfit had left, they just built on top of what was already there.
The second house was just as full of stuff, but this time there were eggs mixed in with it. Four small buff eggs with brown spots. Oops. Sorry folks, but it was time to clean house.
The last house was absolutely packed full of stuff. And it was packed in hard, so I had to really yank it to get it out. Well…when I yanked I got more than nest. Three little chicks tumbled to the ground, too.
Oh shit. Not what I wanted to have happen. My black Lab got all excited and by the time I shooed her away, two of them took off into the weeds. The last one I grabbed quickly and stuffed it and the nest back into the box as best I could.
I had a pretty good idea of where the other two had gone, but the weeds were thick and high. So I pointed the dog to where I knew bird number two had gone in and told her to find the bird. She’s not trained as a bird dog, but she has a pretty good nose and damned if she didn’t find it. I could hear it peeping as she nosed around in the weeds. But she got a little too excited and stepped on the damned thing before I could grab it, so we had little tragedy. I grabbed the dead bird and threw it into the cat o’ nine tails before the dog decided she had to eat it.
I dug around in the weeds where I had seen the third chick enter, but couldn’t find it, so I went back in the house feeling bad about the whole episode.
A couple hours later we were out picking tomatoes in the garden and I decided to try again to find the last chick. I set the dog where I thought it might be and damned if she didn’t find it right away. It took some time to dig down through the brush to find it, but I finally grabbed it and popped it into the hole in the box where I had previously deposited its nestmate.
I don’t know if they’ll live or die, but putting them back in the nest was the only real option I had. I may check on them in the next day or two, or I may just leave well enough alone. I’ve done enough damage to my birds for one week.
08/15/06
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