[mou] Nesting wins and chick raising

[Thomas Maiello]

My yard has become an amazing nursery as of late - now that the grackles 
have grown and are on their own and all that grackalian parenting and 
territorializing have moved on.  I have a new variety chicks in the 
nests and the most charming and amazing parent/young behavior I have 
ever seen.

"My" house wrens have successfully hatched a clutch of crying chicks I 
can hear as I walk near the post box I have set up.  It took a very long 
time.  I think they nested once and failed and after bringing in new 
nesting material (don't know what happened to the old material) they 
ritualized themselves into parenthood.  I almost got bopped with a fecal 
sack the other day as I walked by and the highly energized parent shot 
out of the nest, flapping its wings but dropping before reaching optimum 
flight speed - dropping just far down enough to almost hit me in the 
head.  Now that would have been a wild story about getting bopped from 
the side like a water balloon - Yuk!

I just recently noticed that my robin population has more than doubled 
and that most of them are nearly full-sized adults with their colors 
still not quite up to adult robin standards.  They are already 
independent - experiencing everything new.  Watching one fly up to the 
edge of the birdbath and sit there knowing it was supposed to do 
something.  Finally wading a bit and losing its balance as it slid or 
resisted the experience and finally unceremoniously waddling into the 
center of the water and trying to figure out how to get wet and still 
keep an eye about.  After some 10 minutes of chuckles and precious 
moments, success was much more fun for me I can assure you.  I have 
noticed that the young robins in the bush, shrubs and trees are trying 
to hang out with the adults but the adults are to busy gathering new 
nesting material in a bid to raise another brood.  There are so many 
robins right now that ever time I turn on or adjust a sprinkler, I was 
gifted with an absolute flock of robins of all ages racing into the 
trees and surrounding shrubs, reveling in getting sprinkled and checking 
the soil for buoyant earth worms or insects.  Even the young like the 
grape jelly.

One of the most amazing behaviors has been of the chickadees.  I have a 
number of feeders in arm's length eyeball range of my deck window and 
have an abundance and variety of birds that perform for my private 
audience.  The most common and frequent feasters are the House Finches 
(I think they are really quite handsome, thank you very much).  They 
come in mass usually and take every perch on one triple feeder snacking 
on sunflower seeds, broken peanuts and sunflower hearts.  Their 
favorites change depending on their perch.  Well, their is a flock, yes 
a flock, of chickadees that fly in now.  They consist of at least one 
adult but mostly the cutest miniature young you can imagine.  They are 
just a bit smaller than the adult and a young look about them for lack 
of any scientific description attempt.  With the finches in full 
occupancy, this flock swarms the area and the young seem to keep in 
hoover mode while the adult goes about showing them how to roust the 
perch-hoggers.  And as quick as that, with one maybe two finches moved 
along, the young mimic the adult and in a second the finches are swarmed 
and chased off by the overly mechanically aggressive and now cheerfully 
feeding flock.  I watched them do a similar behavior around the birdbath 
when it came time to get a drink.  The young hovered, the adult began 
setting the behavior standard and in moments all of the young joined 
in.  I saw an example of unbridled trust and leadership between the 
birds.  It was delightful.

Young catbirds are also increasing the avian population of my lush, 
fertile, jungle yard.  The only way I can tell which are the young is 
when they come in for a bath.  The young also seem to be extremely 
independent and I have not seen any obvious adult/young demonstrations.  
The young come in aggressively to the birdbath and commandeer it as they 
matter-of-factly wade right in and get down in the birdbath boogie as 
only catbirds can do.  The young are the ones with the smeared or 
diffusely mottled gray and white breasts - and a look of mid-bath 
accomplishment if I can impose human traits on the feathered entertainers.

I am a bit tangled now with so many grackles on my tray and hotel 
feeders that I am going to stop stocking them as I tire of going out the 
day after stocking them only to find their contents scattered about on 
the ground.  Now don't think this is unappreciated - just not my me.  
The overly abundant new broods of baby rabbits and ground squirrels and 
gray squirrels are most delighted with the behavior.  Over the last week 
I have live trapped 15 squirrels and released them at this abandoned 
house I found a bit away from town.  I doesn't have a front door, few 
windows and has evidence of a massive bird feeders attached to the 
house.  I imagine a family reunion every time I drop of one or two of 
the family and some sort of Pixar party soon to be a movie in our local 
theaters.  They really are cute - no thanks to images of Chip and Dale 
from my childhood.  Anyone have any suggestions for ridding my yard of 
rabbits who, fortunately, have not yet found my garden past the flimsy 
16" walls that separate their eyes from the waiting feast?  I would 
prefer a nonviolent method but I am getting more and more open to 
possibilities.

I must add that the grackle young are also very entertaining.  There are 
quite a number of them and I can tell that many experiences are still 
new to them - like what to do when I come running and ranting at them 
trying to get them to shoo.  They just sit there looking at me.  The 
baby squirrels too.

Thomas Maiello
Spring Lake Park