Gray Catbirds were common and noisy, but didn't want to sit out in the open long for photos.

Field Sparrow. Note the plain face and the pink bill. Their loud bouncing song identifies them even if you don't get a good look.

Common Yellowthroats and House Wrens are both found in Oregon, too, but it is always a pleasure to see them.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

The good little mother did make a pass at me while I was rearranging things just so I'd know those were her babies in that there basket.  I told her it was all alright and that I was helping her keep her babies safe.  She watched me from a distance and I said a prayer that she'd be okay with the move.  I was so nervous about her abandoning the nest that I had to call my mother to chat while I waited, perched in my chair, inside the house to see if she'd come back.  It wasn't long though before I heard her chirping from the deck railing with a mouthful of goodies for her babies.  She eyeballed it all real good and then hopped up onto the basket and after one more good hard look around the place she made her way into the nest.  Daddy was right behind her with a big caterpillar.  I was so happy that they were okay with everything that I got a bit teared up.

I did have to make a minor adjustment and tie off the bottom of the basket more securely.  At one point in the afternoon I noticed her sitting on top of the car wash sponges there with a bunch of worms in her mouth.  I walked by again a few minutes later and she was still there with what looked like the same bunch of worms.  I took a closer look and saw that the basket had rotated around with the entrance to the nest 180 degrees from where it was originally.  It was still accessable to her but it had her thoroughly confused.  Once I corrected the situation all was well again. 

Oh, and I did sneak a quick pic of the babies before I put them up out of reach. 

It's not a real great shot but they're not all that cute yet really...(don't tell their mom I said that though).

One of the things I love about waking up at my parents' house is the sound of the birds singing in the morning. Specifically, the House Wren, who has settled in just under the guest bedroom's window. For the last half a dozen years he's sung from the garden, adding some very bubbly life to the backyard. Although my mom had always put out seed for the birds, we only put up some birdhouses when I got into birding myself, in university. It didn't take long for the wren to discover them; I think he moved in the next summer, and he, or his offspring, has been there since.

There are now six nestboxes set up at various spots on the property (one of which has two compartments). In any given year most get used. In previous years there have been Tree Swallows in one, and Eastern Bluebirds in another, but for whatever reason they're absent this year. However, to make up for that, we have three House Wren pairs that have set up territories at three of the boxes. I occasionally hear them counter-singing at one another, reinforcing their territory boundaries.

The garden wren has three boxes to choose from, but picked the one right next to a large flowering colewort. To put it in perspective, in the photo above the shepherd's hook the box is hanging from is about as tall as I am. The colewort is a pretty amazing plant, growing to huge proportions, and it completely dominates that section of the garden. When my mom first planted it I don't think she knew at the time just how big it would get. She had intended to pull it up after the first year because it took up so much space, but ended up leaving it. The wren thinks this is great, as it provides lots of good cover, right near the nest. I've seen the little birds foraging in and under the bush frequently.

When I went out to wander about the garden this week, I noticed the wrens took great exception to my presence. They hopped about first the crabapple tree, then the nearby apple tree, chirring at me and expressing their displeasure. When I located one with my binoculars, I could see it was carrying a mouthful of food. I didn't leave right away, and it ended up swallowing the food so it could more easily focus its attention on distracting me. Birds only carry food, and get this worked up, when there are young nearby, so I knew they must have a brood in the garden nestbox.

I hid myself behind the corner of the garden shed, and waited for the adults to calm down enough to return to the box. Eventually the one (I think the male) did, coming to perch on the top of the shepherd's hook and scout the area. He had a fat mouthful of bugs. It amazes me how much they can cram into their little beaks, you'd think as soon as they opened their mouth to grab another food item the first would fall out, a little like watching a dog try to pick up two tennis balls. Birds have amazingly dexterous bills, considering that they're not flexible or opposing like our fingers. Can you imagine trying to weave a nest using just a pair of chopsticks?

I leaned around and propped my camera up on the corner of the shed, hoping to remain out of sight, but the wren spotted me and decided it wasn't safe yet to duck in to feed the youngsters. He took off for the crabapple tree again, mouth still full of insects. Birds generally won't approach their nest unless they feel confident that the coast is clear. It's less their own safety they're concerned about, and more trying to prevent tipping off a potential predator to the whereabouts of their young. A lot of time, effort and energy goes into raising a brood of young, and by the time they get to the age where they're needing to be fed a lot, often it's too late in the season to re-lay. So it behooves the parents to be overly cautious - given the harsh realities of migration, there's a good chance one or both of the parents may not return to try again next summer.

Eventually they did both settle down, and came in to the box where the hungry mouths were waiting. I think this is the female, as she was quieter, and appeared a mousier brown than the bolder male, who somewhat resembled a Winter Wren in the darkness of his patterning and barring of the chest. Of course, there's also two colour morphs of the eastern subspecies of House Wren, a brown and a grey, and it could be the pair is composed of one of each, unrelated to sex.

Delivering the goods.

Off for another load. Young birds, like young humans, basically spend all their time eating and sleeping and growing. A newly hatched nestling will need to be fed every 15-20 minutes, which keeps the parents hopping to try to find enough food to fill as many as five or six hungry bellies.

About 40 meters/yards away, another male sang atop his chosen nestbox. I notice this one's paler, but is definitely a male, so maybe the colour difference in the first pair is simply a morph after all. There wasn't any evidence of a female associating with this guy, but she could be inside the house incubating. While she's on the eggs, the male doesn't have a lot to keep him busy and will spend most of his time singing and defending the territory.

He moved to some nearby saplings where the lowering sun's rays illuminated his pale breast. It's really a shame that a single photo can't capture the burble of a House Wren's song. Their mandibles tremble rapidly like the bird is shivering with joy as the cheerful notes tumble out of its mouth. I might see if I can borrow Blackburnian's camcorder to get some video clips of the House Wren and other things.

A narrow Fellow in the Grass

Format

A NARROW Fellow in the Grass

Occaisionally rides--

You may have met Him--did you not

His notice sudden is--  

The Grass divides as with a Comb--

A spotted shaft is seen--

And then it closes at your feet

And opens further on--  

He likes a Boggy Acre

A Floor too cool for Corn--

Yet when a Boy, and Barefoot--

I more than once at noon

Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash,

Unbraiding in the Sun

When stooping to secure it

It wrinkled, and was gone--  

Several of Nature's People

I know, and they know me--

I feel for them a transpoRt

Of cordiality--  

But never met this Fellow,

Attended or alone

Without a tighter breathing

And Zero at the Bone. 

Emily Dickinson (1866) first published as The Snake

This narrow fellow was on the rocks, not the grass.  But grass is his metier.  This is a gopher snake cruising the garden at Grace's ranch west of Jacksonville.  He's a specialist in small mammal consumption.  Though he's but three feet long now, should he survive he (or she) can aspire to a length of six feet or more.  Though there are no gophers about Grace's, there are plenty of voles, and ground squireels abound.  You can watch them cavort through the grass and along the less wooded hillsides.

This particular hunter washeaded toward Grace's birdfood storage area.  I expect that attracts a few rodentia from nearby brush, and this guy was hping for a meal.  Grace's Norman also tells me a nearby planter houses a large colony of fence lizards.  A veritable gopher snake smorgasbord.

BIRDS

Both Mountain and California Quail were calling, my dual quails.  I still haven't laid an eye on the Mountain Quail that call from the regrowing burned-over hillsides along the edge of Grace's ranch.  Maybe some day....  It's a modern version of the siren's song, could lead a hopeful birder ot weander miesl over steep terrain, with just that single note sounding somewhere out further along the trail....

There was a lone male Lazuli Bunting hunting in the dense shade beneath the oaks.  He was alongside a couple Robins and a pair of Brewer's Blackbirds.  They were all easily seen, but the little Lazuli became shadow-gray, his color almost completely invisible in the lowered light.

A Killdeer scrambled around the sparse weeds in the horse pasture and pretended to be hurt, obviously the nest was nearby. 

 Up in the woods just below the fire scarred zone, a House Wren was singing, darting about.  The bird eyed me with curiosity, perhaps wrenfull ferocity though I felt not endangered or even threatened, just obvious and clumsy.  He's about five inches long. 

And perhaps the exact living opposite of that gopher snake along the gravel drive, this Turkey Vulture, a creature that seems to only exist in flight, wobbling along an updraft, coasting across a clouded mountain rim, lifting ever higher on a proper wind.

But sometimes even the Vulture must come to earth, grounded by appetite and opportunity, this tim eit was a roadkill deer carcass near Emigrant Lake some weeks ago.

Location:     Sterling Creek Road
Observation date:     6/1/08
Notes:     neither of the quail were seen, of course, a hummingbird zapped through the garden but I couldn't ID the little streak in flight
Number of species:     26

Mountain Quail     1
California Quail     1
Killdeer     1
Mourning Dove     2
Hairy Woodpecker     1
Western Wood-Pewee     1
Western Kingbird     1
Cassin's Vireo     1
Steller's Jay     2
Western Scrub-Jay     1
Common Raven     2
Tree Swallow     1
House Wren     1
American Robin     3
MacGillivray's Warbler     1
Western Tanager     4
Spotted Towhee     1
Chipping Sparrow     3
Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)     1
Black-headed Grosbeak     6
Lazuli Bunting     4
Brewer's Blackbird     2
Brown-headed Cowbird     2
Bullock's Oriole     4
Purple Finch     2
Lesser Goldfinch     8

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org/Klamath-Siskiyou)

Location:     Glenview Drive--Ashland
Observation date:     4/28/08
Notes:     first tanager I've seen this spring
Number of species:     16

Mallard     3
Turkey Vulture     6
Vaux's Swift     1
Belted Kingfisher     1
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)     1
Pileated Woodpecker     1
Pacific-slope Flycatcher     1
Steller's Jay     4
Western Scrub-Jay     2
House Wren     1
American Robin     2
Orange-crowned Warbler     1
Nashville Warbler     2
Wilson's Warbler     1
Western Tanager     1,  female
Spotted Towhee     3

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Great Horned Owls Pectoral Sandpiper Mallard Duck Peregrine Falcon Peregrine Chick

Ring-necked Pheasant Ruby-throated Hummingbird Tundra Swans Wild Turkey Catbird

Wild Turkey Red Tailed Hawk Tree Swallow Killdeer House Wren

With the nice weather yesterday, and perhaps also as a symbol of the new season, I took my screwdriver and went out to clean out the birdhouses to make room for this year's residents. When I was growing up we didn't have birdhouses set up. I'm not sure why, because we always had feeders. Perhaps it just hadn't occurred to us. Sometime in university I think I won a birdhouse in a bird-related contest that I've since forgotten the details of. We put it up that summer, and it wasn't long before a House Wren set up shop. The burbling song brought such life to the garden - not that the garden hadn't been lively before, but the wren just added that sparkle.

There's now five and a half birdhouses out in the garden: four traditional single-unit houses, and a double-unit house. The double-unit is the above covered wagon, which my mom won at a convention or AGM some years ago. By the end of the summer, every single one of these houses has been checked out or used, and they all need cleaning the next winter. The primary residents are the House Wrens, although we have had Tree Swallows and Eastern Bluebirds using a couple of them during the early part of the season (once they've fledged the wrens move in and raise a second brood there). There's perhaps as many as three pairs of wrens on the property, although it can be a little hard to keep track of them.

Both compartments of the covered wagon had been stuffed with twigs. Wrens make very characteristic nests in boxes, you can always tell it's a wren when you take it out. Somehow they manage to tote these twigs, many longer than their own body, back to the nestbox, pull them through the small opening, and stuff them into every corner. They fill every nook and cranny in the box, and the result is a firm rectangular nest that holds its shape even when you take it out of the box.

This wren has lined its nest with horse hair, which is abundant at the property, what with there being five of them plus a donkey within easy flying distance. You can tell which horses donated their hair to the nest by the colour of the strands. There's also downy breast feathers from several birds, which suggests that this was a late-summer nest, after some other species had already finished raising their brood and had started moulting in fresh feathers. The bright orange one is obviously from a Baltimore Oriole; the others I'm less sure about, but could possibly be from a robin.

In the compartment on the other side of the wagon was this nest, which fell apart as I removed it. It had no lining and appeared to never have been finished. House Wren males will build multiple nest structures that they then show off to their prospective females. The female decides which one she likes best, and then works to finish lining it to start the family in. You can tell a lot about the surrounding trees by what the wren has stuffed in its box; in this case, the box isn't far from a grove of cedars that would have provided a fair bit of easy, short building material.

This is the Tree Swallows' box. They usually arrive early in the spring (perhaps in the next couple weeks) and start checking out the boxes in the yard. They invariably choose this one in the end. They raise one brood and then move off. They leave at about the same time that the wren is looking to start up a second brood (or a third), and he'll often move in to build his own in there.

Here's the house with the door open. I can't recall now whether we cleaned this house out between tenants or not, but the wren's twigs go right down to the bottom of the box, so it's possible we did, or he stuffed more in there around the swallow's nest. Either way it's very much a wren nest now. They like for their nests to be a certain height below the entry hole, and will fill the bottom up with twigs to bring the lined nest up to that height as necessary.

The hole in the covered wagon is much closer to the bottom than in this nestbox, and so the twigs were used more to fill the back of the space than to fill the bottom, you could actually see the snow through the bottom of the cup. In this case they needed to bring the height up a fair bit, and the bottom two or three inches are solid twigs. I'm not sure what laundry Mom was hanging out on the line at the time, but it may have been a sleeping bag or comforter - the lining at the top of the nest is partially composed with synthetic fluffy filling.

When I opened the nest up to check out what the wren had used in building it, I was surprised to discover something in it. At first I thought it was a clump of fur, maybe leftover from an owl's rabbit kill or something like that, that the wren had picked up. But it turned out to be a little baby wren, old enough to have fledged, but still in the nest. Why?

The answer was in its position. One leg was stretched out way in front of its body, and in removing the little bird from the nest I found a strand of the synthetic filling wrapped around its foot. I actually had to snap the strand to get the bird out of the nest. Evidently the nestling had become caught, and couldn't leave the nest when its siblings did. It would have starved to death as a result. It's rather sad.

The nestling was soft in my hand. They are the most beautiful mousey brown, even the colour suggests soft. Their wing feathers are a little rustier, particularly when young, and barred in neat lines characteristic of wrens. I left it in the nest contents where I found it. I feel sad for it, but I also have to consider that this is nature. Perhaps only one of those young birds that left the nest last summer will survive to return to the area this spring. A bird's first year is brutal, and the death rate among first-year birds is very high. Once a bird has made it through its first year its chances of surviving to three or four years, or perhaps even longer, is greatly increased. So instead of dwelling on this one death, I look forward to the return of these cheerful little birds, the ones who've made it through another winter, in the coming month.

I asked him what kind of bird he was named after.   

“I like Green Lantern,” he said.

Hoping to find the answer on my own, I started listing the wrens.”

“Winter wren?”

No response.

“Cactus?”

Nothing.

“House wren? Carolina?  Sedge? Marsh?”  

Wren was paying no attention to my inquisition, so I turned my attention to his superheroes.

“How come he’s green?” 

Wren looked up, shrugged, then looked back to his stamps.

“And what’s with the lantern?”

“It’s cuz he’s the Green Lantern.” 

Wren rolled his eyes at the pointlessness of my question just as his mother, Heidi, who had been listening from a few feet away joined the conversation. 

 “What’s your full name, Wren?”

 “I don’t like Aqua Man.” 

“What’s not to like about Aqua Man?” I asked. “Aqua Man is my favorite.  He can talk to the whales, the squids, the dolphins.  And they talk back, too.”

Wren looked up from the stamps.  His father, Stuart, stopped chopping peppers and looked over from the kitchen. 

“Wouldn’t you rather be able to fly?”  Stuart asked.

“Yeah, I’d fly.” chimed Wren. “Why would you want to talk to fish?”

 “Oh, come on, guys, imagine the impact I could have on the world if I could talk to the whales.  I mean, how do you think they feel about over-fishing?  About global warming?  And what about all that noisy sonar?  That must drive them crazy!  Just think, If they had a way to communicate with us – about what we are doing to their home.  Imagine being such an advocate! The responsibility and potential! There would be no more arguing about our impact.  We would have to respond – to change things.”

I was feeling pretty good about my decision to back Aqua Man – the altruism of it! – when his father spoke up.

“Yeah, imagine requesting a meeting with the president so you can tell him that you’ve been talking with the whales and there’s some things they want him to know. That’ll change the world.” 

“Is it Canyon Wren?” Heidi asked him.

“Can the Green Lantern fly?”

“It’s Canyon Wren,” she said to me.

“I would have gotten there. Eventually,”  I responded.  “Cool name.  Hey, how fast is the Green Lantern?"

“Bobickly!” said Wren excitedly.

“Bobickly?”

Wren looked at his father and grinned.  Clearly, they knew something I didn’t.

“And just how fast is bobickly fast?”

Wren looked at me with a furrowed brow.

 “It’s a noun,” offered Stuart.

“Ok. I get it.  What is a bobickly?”

Wren smiled.

“I’ll show you.”

Wren got up from the floor and walked over to the door.  I thought maybe he had a bobickly out on the porch and was going to retrieve it until he stopped and turned around.

“Watch behind him,” said Stuart.

 Wren took off running as fast as he could across the room.

At 5 years old, Wren couldn’t run all that fast, but I understood what they were after. 

“Wow!  It’s like you blurred.  Like you were everywhere at once!”

“That’s a bobickly!” they proclaimed together.

“Aqua Man doesn’t get bobicklies, does he?” I asked. 

“Nope.  Not fast enough.  And he can’t fly, either.”

“He can breathe underwater, though...”

“Tell me a story.”

“Only if you put the stamps away.”

Wren was reluctant, but I held my ground and with Stuart’s encouragement, he put the stamps away. Then, together, we told the story of Mr. Wiggle and Mr. Waggle – a tale of best friends who moved so fast through the mountains to see each other that they left bobicklies in their wake.  The story ended just as it does every time, just the way it was taught to me by Jim May:

“…good night, Mr. Wiggle.”

“Good night, Mr. Waggle.”

Cause they were best friends!

By the time we had finished the story, Stuart had finished making supper and I needed to go home.  I put on my shoes, said goodbye and headed out the door.  As I got to the bottom of the steps, I heard the door open and I looked back.

Wren was standing in the doorway waving, with a big grin on his face.

“Goodnight Jim!”

“Goodnight Wren!”

Cause we were best friends!