June 17: Nesting

nesting season

both catbirds

scolding the cat

June 11: Nesting

catbirds nest-making

in the sunny old garden

everything’s ok

July 8: Making hay

Freshly mown hayfield--

I can't help but think

of the nesting Bobolinks.

Posted with Blogsy

November 29: Selling Christmas trees

• Christmas trees' past lives--

• sometimes we find a bird's nest

• or a vine garland.

 

Posted with Blogsy

July 2: Blue Jay crisis

Blue Jays built a nest on our front porch and hatched out one nestling, now half-grown. Unfortunately today it prematurely bailed out of the nest, and then did it again and again each time Paul replaced it. We can't tell if it hurt itself in the fall or is just weak because its parents are too busy dive-bombing everything in the yard to look after it. But after consulting Avian Haven, the bird rehabilitation place in Freedom, Paul put it in a basket with some soft rags and hung it up by the nest in hopes that the parents will resume tending to it. We have been trying not to care too much, because you just can't get attached to a baby bird, but the vulnerable little thing did hatch on our porch...

This won't end well--
I wish the struggling jay
hadn't clung to my finger.

July 3 update: The baby jay, in rough shape but still alive this morning, was transferred to Avian Haven.

May 29: Nest

I was wrong in my May 26 post. The Blue Jays really did build a nest over our front door while we were away, and now she's up there brooding on eggs! I think of the classic haiku poet Issa, his compassion toward the spiders and other creatures that lived with him...

Please use the back door.

Mother jay is sitting tight

on three eggs out front.

Posted with Blogsy

January 20: Blown by the wind

A mound of twigs and leaves, perhaps a fallen squirrel's nest, sits on the snow in my neighbor's back yard. As I peer at it, trying to figure out exactly what it is, a large brown oak leaf skitters across the snow. The leaf pauses until the next gust. When I next look out, it's gone, blown in the river, undoubtedly on its way to being swept downstream.

Oak leaf blowing
across the snow.
Sometimes I feel like that.

April 8: Easter nests

Earlier today we watched a few lazy snowflakes drift over the backyard. No egg hunts for us on this raw Sunday. The cat batted a felt egg around the living room, while golfers swatted golf balls around the Masters course in Augusta, Georgia on t.v. Here, we were serenaded by a cardinal and a chaotic chorus of goldfinches. In Augusta, Carolina wrens, mockingbirds, and at least one bluebird provided background music to the golfers. Later, we enjoyed Easter buffet with my parents at the Samoset's La Bella Vita restaurant, happily stuffing ourselves at an ocean view table with two gulls staring in at us (or more accurately, at our food).

Signs of spring are becoming more and more apparent despite the lingering chill and today's brief snow, but what struck me as we drove home from the Samoset was how many of last year's bird nests are yet visible among the still-bare branches. One yard had two nests tucked in two different trees: four nests in one small front lawn. My eyes began to pick out one after another in the trees (along with a few squirrel dreys). Songbirds don't re-use their nests like eagles or ospreys, so these truly are homes of seasons past. But in just another month or so, these trees will be leafed out, and nest-building will begin anew...

Holiday of eggs--
in the bare branches we spy
last year's nests, empty.