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.