Families

I am seeing the blue birds and the wrens flitting here and there with bugs in their mouths. Their eggs have hatched and the young are demanding food...although very quietly it seems.  One wren's nest has at least two and more than likely three little ones with feathers starting and big yellow mouths.  

Ethel, our female osprey, still sits patiently on her eggs and Fred brings her a nice cold slimy fish each morning for breakfast.  He sometimes joins her for a brief time in the afternoon and they perhaps discuss budgets and tuition costs and the long trip to their winter home in the fall.  He does bring in a stick or bit of swamp grass every other day.  I think he is feeling guilty that she bears the burden during this time of family.  He probably tucks it to her side and asks if she doesn't think it adds a certain ambiance that was missing and then smiles nervously.


I heard two blue jays screaming and crying the other morning and went outside to investigate.  They were flying around a hollow tree that had been investigated earlier in the spring by two blue birds.  Also flying and crying were two red bellied woodpeckers and two cardinals!  They were not fighting with each other,  just throwing a fit over something.  I did not see a snake but perhaps one had climbed that high and was now eating someone's young or someone's eggs inside the hole in the trunk.

This black racer was slithering across one of our patio chairs during dinner one early evening and scaring the unskilled wren who had once again built her nest in the upside down kayak!  We did not attempt a rescue this year.  Since the kayak was upside down the nest would be thrown free if we tried to turn the boat and remove it from the snake and we had no place else to put the nest if we were successful.  I lectured the snake on the nutritional value of mice (six of which I have trapped in my basement) and the value of voles (which have begun to ruin one of my flower beds), but I do not think he cared.  A bird in the nest is worth six in the house.

The cardinal seems to have returned to that little maple near my bay window.  But unlike the wren that lets everyone within a mile know where her nest is by singing loudly as she rests on the front porch of her home, this cardinal is a stealth builder.  First I saw a few grasses, then the base of the nest grew in size and now a very nice bowl is formed.  I have NEVER seen the cardinal, though.   The nest is well hidden as would be the bird with the coloring of the maple.  This is such great camouflage.  If you look in the center left of the photo below you may see the gray blur that is the nest.

This morning I looked inside that nest and found two eggs!  I took a quick snapshot and left fearing she would return while I was there.    Looks like a fun time ahead.