Watching the Neighbors

On Thursday, June 28, we had an intense thunderstorm. I was up early and sitting on the porch before going to work. The house wren young were chattering, calling for food. They were big enough that I could see a bill or two coming out of the nest box opening. A parent would fly there, the chattering would intensify, the parent would fly off.

That afternoon, hours after the rain ended and the sun came out, they were gone.

It took a while to realize this because I was working, but later in the afternoon I came out and did not hear chattering. I stood under the apple tree, next to the box. No chattering. No scolding parent. Gone.

A week after this picture, the birds were gone. Note the tell-tale
twig showing the box is occupied. (Margo D. Beller)

I had expected this. The birds were not happy with all the squirrels and birds going after the apples in the tree. They were not happy with me picking them either. It had been over a week since the little peeps became an almost constant dry rattle, and I admit the sound was getting annoying. Any day they were going to fly from the box.

Once I realized these birds had flown, and knowing a heatwave was coming in the next day or so, I got my extension pole and knocked down close to 30 apples, adding them to my bucket filled with close to 100 more. There may have been one or two left in the highest part of the tree then but I can tell you that now all the apples are gone. Even the apples I had dumped around the yard were gone. (I used what I picked for sauce and a couple of cobblers.)

A couple of days later, as I was sitting on the porch in the early morning with my coffee, a house wren flew to the top of my feeder pole and sang. And sang. It sang all over that part of the yard. From my vantage point I saw it fly to the birdhouse in my neighbor's dogwood tree. Last year, when it looked like chickadees got to my nest box first, a house wren had gone to that birdhouse. (Another one later came to my nest box and evicted the chickadees.) This year a house wren took over my box just a day after I put it up. Now I saw the tell-tale sign of occupancy at my neighbor's - a plastic strip waving in the breeze from the box opening. 

Now there is wren song at dawn again, but from elsewhere as the bird stays relatively close to the nest. 

It made me wonder, why not my nest box? House wrens can have two broods in one summer but I've never had two broods in the box. Are these new wrens next door or the ones I hosted that decided they didn't like having all those creatures around the nest? In past years the brood would fledge and the apples would need to be picked a few weeks later. Not this year when we had sudden heat and the squirrels didn't wait for the apples to fully ripen.

Were these new wrens put off by the twig sticking out of the box, thinking the box is occupied? I pulled out the twig but no wren has come. Meanwhile, the two wrens next door are shuttling to and from the birdhouse. Soon there will be eggs, then young, then fledglings. By then summer will just about be over and the wrens will fly south.

Here in the suburbs we watch our neighbors' yards to make sure there is nothing illicit going on. I mean more than Neighborhood Watch groups. I'm talking about the garden variety sort of looking at what's going on nearby. When I hear the sounds of mowing or drilling or sawing, I make it a point to see where this noise is coming from, to make sure my property won't be affected. I admit, I am rather territorial and sometimes my watchfulness isn't appreciated. Had my neighbor come out and seen me on my porch with my binoculars pointed at his house, he might have become concerned. He has small children to protect. 

Well, he also has a family of young house wrens as neighbors that he may or may not be aware are in his birdhouse. So in my own watchful way I am trying to protect them, too, from afar. 

A Bird Walk of the Mind

I see again those myriad mornings rise

 when every living thing

 casts its shadow in eternity

-- Poem 19 from "A Coney Island of the Mind" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

It is hot as blazes outside today. The temperature is soaring to around 100 degrees F and the humidity makes it feel worse. The sun is not yet around to the part of the house where I am but I know it is coming and the AC will soon be have to be turned on.

I hate weather like this. It forces me to stay inside. The weather people say, those with breathing issues should stay where it is cool. And so I am. Early in the day I was on my porch listening to the cardinal, the catbird, chipping sparrow and distant Carolina wren. I would like to be walking but where? The bugs attacked my bare ankles just walking to and from the compost pile.

The Passaic River. Scherman Hoffman (Somerset Cty) on the right, Morris
Couny on the left. (Margo D. Beller0

It is depressing.

So I try to do other things to get out of this heat-induced funk. I imagine myself walking in a cool forest where there are no bugs, no people, just birds singing. Right now, I am imagining myself at the New Jersey Audubon center at Scherman Hoffman in Bernardsville.

Just about every Friday and Saturday morning, weather permitting, there is an 8 a.m. bird walk, and I've taken many of them back in the days when I would rise early on a Saturday and rush from my home to try and decompress from a week of stressful work in a city office. It is a peaceful walk that can have anywhere from two to two dozen people. One of the best things about this walk, besides all the birds I can find, is the walk is free.

I have been on the property enough times that I can sit on my back porch and visualize my own, ideal bird walk.

(Margo D. Beller)

I start at the education center. From inside the store I can see the Scherman feeders and a water source that attract the same birds I can see in my backyard, usually titmice, chickadees and chipping sparrows, perhaps a cardinal or a jay. There is a window feeder for the hummingbirds. (My feeder has drawn few of them this year.)

Next, I visit the observation platform. If this was autumn I'd be here watching for southbound hawks. In summer it's a good bet there will be chimney swifts flying about, looking like cigars with wings, hunting for insects in the heat. Below are the nest boxes for house wrens. A shadow passes and it is a red-tailed hawk.

I leave the building for the driveway, looking for slight movement in the leafed-out trees. Is that the breeze or a bird? It's a bird, in this case a black-throated green warbler just poking about for a meal. In the distance I can hear a Baltimore oriole with its melodious whistles.

Black-throated green warbler
(Margo D. Beller)

Where the Dogwood Trail (red blaze) meets the driveway I take a left and head down the hill to the open fields that were burned recently to get rid of the invasive plants and make room for natives. Along this hill I have found bluebirds, Carolina wrens and indigo buntings. At the bottom of the hill I have a choice: the Field Loop (green blaze) trail into an open field with its small pond and circular path, or head to the Passaic River (yellow blaze).

I take the left, letting the many dogwoods shade me. At any moment the silence can be broken by a number of birds such as American redstarts or ruby-crowned kinglets or catbirds. I keep moving to the river, the mighty Passaic.

This river is the border between Morris County across the way and Somerset County where Scherman Hoffman is located. It is nowhere near as wide as farther downstream when it becomes more polluted because of decades of abuse by chemical companies.

Ferns and dame's rockets, Scherman Hoffman (Margo D. Beller)

Flying to a low branch, bobbing its tail is a phoebe, one of the first migrants to arrive in spring. I see them often here along with Louisiana waterthrush and the occasional scarlet tanager. I have to walk carefully now because of the many exposed tree roots. Many plants I can't name but I do recognize ferns and dame's rocket. The monotonous "here I am, look at me, sitting here, in a tree" tells me a red-eyed vireo is nearby. In my mind there is no one walking a dog or fishing along the river, although I've seen both in visits here.

Eventually, I turn around and go back to the red trail, left on the green trail and then slowly up the hill to my car, listening to all the birds.

Time to put on the AC.