Family Time Anew

It is a damp but cool morning in the backyard, the summer heat and humidity temporarily bearable. The house wren is sitting on her nest in the box, her head visible in the opening. It must be very warm in that little wooden box, most of it taken up by the nest and, I am guessing, the eggs she protects.

(Margo D. Beller)

This is not the first time we've watched each other. Many early mornings I step out on my patio and she watches me as her mate sings from a nearby tree, either warning her of my presence or warning me to stay away. I am not going to bother her, I'm not even going to take her picture. I've waited a longer time than usual this season for a wren pair to use the box.

But she may come to trust me because I've been chasing squirrels out of the apple tree where the nest box hangs. The apples are getting bigger and I've already had to clean up after the squirrels before the deer come by to finish eating the dropped apples. The squirrels shake the branches so violently the wren flees the box. But she returns once the squirrels are gone and I go back to the porch to watch her through the door.

It's family time again in my yard.

In the next yard a family of robins follow a parent, calling loudly as he or she feeds each one. In the bushes in one corner of the yard, the catbird brood is following their parents. In the early morning I can still hear birds singing or calling - chipping sparrow, cardinal, several types of woodpecker, fish crow - but the calls are shorter because they don't want to give away where their nests are located.

Great egret from another year's a shore visit.
(RE Berg-Anderson)

These babies will grow up fast, so fast the adults might create another brood this season, either with each other or other mates depending on the type of bird.

Land birds are what I know best, but I've also seen the reports from down the shore where herons, egrets and other water birds are raising their young. Because they are more visible I would love to travel and see them, as I do every year, but this year we are still in the coronavirus pandemic even though conditions are slowly easing so we could travel and perhaps find an open rest area.

But not just yet.

A weed I can live with - wild strawberries
in the backyard, a summer treat. (Margo D. Beller)

So unless I can get myself out of the house early on a summer morning (for the coolness, the birdsong and to get back before I must go to work), I depend on the yard birds to keep me connected to nature. With the foliage out, most of the time I have to bird by ear anyway when I am in the woods. That's another reason shore birding - despite the green flies and other annoying insects - would be a fine alternative.

In the meantime, I watch the house wrens. They don't know today is Father's Day. I have sent messages to several fathers I know, one of them a first-time father, and think of my own father and father-in-law who are no longer with us.

Pepper Update

The heat sometimes numbs my brain, or perhaps it's aging, but now I am down to four pepper seedlings from nine. How did that happen?

First, I put out the pots and forgot to put down mulch to keep the soil moist and cool so the plants wouldn't dry out. I lost four of the five that way. Then I overcompensated with the watering, which killed off one more.

Had I put mulch down earlier, this pepper
would have survived. (Margo D. Beller)

So now I have one growing pepper in one pot and three in the large pot. All have soil covered with old leaves and grass clippings from my compost pile and wood chips bought for a long-ago orchid. We finally had rain last night so the remaining plants are standing up and growing, so I am optimistic once again.

The two now-pepperless pots are back on the porch, waiting for me to put something in each. At some point I'll figure out what that will be, and this time I'll remember the mulch.