Time Passing

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.

-- John Steinbeck

When I am walking in a familiar place in one season, I can't help remembering the birds I saw in the same place in another season, usually in another year.

So when I took a winter walk the other weekend in the Central Park of Morris County (but what I still call Greystone for the mental hospital that once stood there), I saw what is and what was.

Greystone administration building, razed not long
after this picture in 2015 (Margo D. Beller)

Let's start with the symbol of Greystone, the Kirkbride administration building. There was a battle over the abandoned building, which was ultimately torn down because that was cheaper than preserving it. Plans included turning it into apartments, which would've greatly changed this area with increased traffic. Now it is a wide-open field over which I've seen swallows and other birds hunting insects.

Conversely, there is an area at the outer edge of the property that was once a working farm. The structures were removed decades ago and the field became overgrown. When this area was turned into a county park a number of trees were cut down and the land cleared. Paths were cut through, intended for cross-country competitions but also used for walkers and joggers. Now the area has been replanted with different types of saplings in protective wrappings. In a decade, maybe less, this open space will become a forest.

As I walk this path in December it is cold and gray and the trees are bare, so I am thinking of what I have seen here in other seasons. Over here, a noise prompted me to look across the sapling field to find a herd of deer, including two bucks butting heads. Near the brook that runs through this field, a song sparrow was singing atop a downed tree. In yet another area, past a different field filled with blooming goldenrod and ragweed, a flock of migrating palm warblers. Here, in a tree over a field of milkweed, is a vesper sparrow, an autumn visitor, distinctive for its white eye ring.

The same area after the debris was removed, 2018.
(Margo D. Beller)

But today it is quiet and windy. I look at the tree where just a month ago I watched flocks of robins, cedar waxwings, starlings and bluebirds gorge on seeds, insects and the fruiting vines as white-throated sparrows called to each other from the field below. The tree is now bare, the birds laying low and quiet except for a couple of song sparrows alarmed by the guy running along the path with his dog. The dog wants to check me out but his owner calls to him and they continue on. Other walkers, some wearing headphones, ignore me so I am basically alone in this vast place.

I enjoy these winter walks and the solitude. Without the leaves the trees show their striking, sometimes grotesque, forms. I can see where past storms have sheared off limbs. It is easy to find the large nests of squirrels. 

Winter tree (Margo D. Beller)

But along with the starkness this time of year brings me a feeling of loss, of time passing, of death. The days are shorter, the nights longer and the year is ending. I think of friends and family no longer living. The darkness keeps me inside more than I'd like. These feelings come every year but they still hit me, sometimes in unexpected ways.

When I was here in November I noticed that many of the saplings had grown tall enough to be identifiable. This time, the leaves are down and I noticed several red cedars had also been planted. These conifers should grow much faster than the saplings, as well as provide little berries for the birds in winter. But at some point they will be overshadowed by the trees. I look at this field and try to imagine what it is going to look like. I know the landscape is going to look very different.

Saplings, November 2021 (Margo D. Beller)

For instance, the many types of sparrows I've seen in this open field are not found in deep woods and so will be moving elsewhere. This former mental hospital was altered to become a park to benefit county residents like me. But what about the birds and other creatures that were living here after the mental hospital closed but before the park was built? The wooded areas where I once found an assortment of birds are gone, cut down for soccer fields. Vultures that once roosted in trees along the main road have gone elsewhere because the area became too busy for them. 

There is good and bad to making massive changes. 

Both this area and I are changing, not necessarily for the better, and will continue to change as time goes on. Time can't be stopped. The year 2021 is ending. It has been filled with challenges, some pain but a lot of happiness. This year, in the midst of Covid-19, a lovely wedding. Next year offers the promise of a new grand-niece. Sometimes I dwell too much on the past and the future, so to stay sane I take these walks and try to stick to the present.

...And Through the Woods

When I met my husband (MH), his family was living in a town in Morris County, New Jersey. Over the years, the family has slowly migrated to central New Hampshire. 

First was MH's immediately younger brother, who had met a New Hampshire girl and eventually settled up there with her after college. Then MH's youngest brother migrated up there with his then-wife to look for a job. He also stayed and remarried after the first marriage ended. Once the grandchildren started coming, my in-laws moved to New Hampshire, too, leaving MH and me the only members of the family still in New Jersey, from which we had migrated from the city to a town not far from where his parents had lived..

Thus we've gone to New Hampshire for Thanksgiving for years as the children have grown and had children of their own. Coming from a suburb of New York City to a rural area gives me a chance to get away from work and observe a different area. I've seen the changes in this part of the state over several decades as other people have migrated up there to live either part time or full time. And, of course, I've watched the birds for ones I can't find at home.

A black-capped chickadee (Margo D. Beller)

MH's brother knows I am a serious birder and, considering he works at teaching people to look at, enjoy and protect nature, he always likes to test my knowledge.

So this year he asked me to guess which birds were currently coming to his yard, including his one seed and two suet feeders. One of them, the red-breasted nuthatch, is a rare visitor to my yard because I don't have the pine trees this bird prefers. I also don't get bluebirds (he has nest boxes for them). Aside from that, his visitors are what I typically get in suburban New Jersey: cardinal, chickadees, titmice, white-breasted nuthatch, song sparrows, juncos, downy and hairy woodpeckers, mourning dove, jays, robins.

But more recently he has also been visited by a Carolina wren, and after we left he told us a redbellied woodpecker came to the suet and he saw a redtailed hawk looking down from one of the trees on his property.

These were not visitors to this part of the state even 10 years ago, I believe, but, like the year-round human population here, that has been slowly changing.

Carolina wren, common to my feeder
but now appearing to the
north. (Margo D. Beller)

I recently read an interesting book, by the biologist Thor Hanson, about the effects of climate change and how plants and animals react to it. The sections of the book cover the four possibilities: adjust, evolve, move or die. When it comes to the birds, as the planet warms many species have expanded their territories northward into previously inhospitable areas. (The increase in the number of people putting out feeders when winter comes doesn't hurt either.) The birds already in those areas are faced with increasing competition for limited resources. Those birds, in turn, have to move or change the way they live in order to survive.

The appearance of a redtail near his property interests me in particular. In all our visits I've never seen a redtail in his part of the state. The more urbanized part of New Hampshire to the south, yes, particularly near the interstates where the hawks sit in a tree or on a lamp post and wait for a meal to appear below so they can swoop down and grab it. In my brother-in-law's area the more usual are redshouldered and broadwinged hawks.These birds usually fly south for the winter. What happens when they return to find redtails in their midst? Or what if this area warms enough that these birds fly south later than usual, or not at all?

Redtailed hawk (Margo D. Beller)

There are now more people on my brother-in-law's road who have either built new houses or converted their summer houses to year-end living. These people tend to be older, with children or visiting grandchildren, and are driving more luxury vehicles and trucks. As they come to the area, the forest disappears. The climate changes in subtle ways. If they put out feeders, the birds come during the winter. So do the hawks that feed on them.

Many of the common birds I see in my yard were once exclusively from south of my area: cardinal, mockingbird, Carolina wren, redbellied woodpecker. Now they are common in New Jersey. We don't think anything of it. But, as Hanson points out, climate change has slowly been prompting the flowers to bloom earlier than usual and bring out the insects, affecting what the migrating birds find when they are passing through during their long journeys from winter to breeding territories. Meanwhile, the yard birds benefit so why should they leave?

Male bobolink (RE Berg-Andersson)

The national Audubon Society believes there are nearly 400 bird species threatened by climate change and habitat devastation including 53 types of coastal birds, 69 types of Eastern forest birds and 39 types of grassland birds including the bobolink - a bird I once saw and heard in a field not far from the N.H. town where my in-laws moved. But that was many years ago. As people have migrated into areas once dominated by woods or grasslands, they have pushed out the birds that can't adapt or are forced to leave when humanity cuts down the forests, paves the dirt roads and generally warms the planet with car exhaust.

I don't know what we can do to hold back this tide, and that bothers me.

Space Invaders

Another gray morning. On my enclosed porch, my chair in the corner faces east to catch the rays of the rising sun. But the day is starting cloudy once again, with a stiff, cold wind out of the north-northwest.

As I stare out, sipping my coffee, the sky turns black. Thousands of dark birds, all heading norttheast, fill the sky, a veritable river of birds, more and then more still. I think of Audubon's description of the now-extinct passenger pigeon blackening the sky: "The air was literally filled with Pigeons; the light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse..."

These birds, however, were common grackles.

You see them in small flocks for most of the year, but in winter these shiny, long-tailed birds mass in flocks of thousands.

Grackle flock, February 2020 (Margo D. Beller)

Why certain types of birds do this is not known. Safety in numbers? A need to keep warm? Easier to find food? All of the above?

In my area of the country, the common grackle predominates. The much larger, aptly named great-tailed grackle is a bird of the southwest. I have never seen one, but I have seen the shore-loving boat-tailed grackles when I've been on one of the New Jersey or Delaware beaches. An easy way to tell the boat-tails from the common grackles is by looking for the smaller females. If she is brown, she's a boat-tail. If she's black, she's a common.

What they all have in common, besides their genus, is they can be pests, especially when they arrive in a cornfield, at a yard or mass along a boardwalk in large numbers. 

Female boat-tailed grackle (RE Berg-Andersson)

I've written before about the sudden arrival of literally a thousand common grackles on my lawn back in 2020, a year where we did not get much snow to keep these birds away. (As opposed to 2021, when we got too much snow.) I am fascinated by these extravagantly large flocks that appear out of nowhere, stay for a while and then leave for the next food source.

Grackles breed in northern New England, a healthy swath of Canada and into the U.S. midwest, according to the Cornell Ornithology Lab's range map. But they are found year-round throughout the eastern U.S., and that's where my New Jersey yard fits in.

These invasions in my yard generally take place in late autumn or early spring, before and after snow  covers the lawn. Grackles mass in fields and eat certain crops like corn, but in my area they can mass in parks and will eat just about anything including garbage or, in my case, bird seed. When I look through my open office shade and see one of these flocks showing up in my vicinity, the first thing I do is rush out to pull in my feeders. 

Once the feeders and I are safely back on the enclosed porch, I watch. The birds stalk the ground poking for worms, or fly into the corners (or my compost pile) where they can turn over leaves and search for insect larvae or other food. There is a loud chatter of "chuk chuk chuk" as dozens, hundreds or even thousands of birds call to family members. Then they fly to the next yard or, if I come outside, rise into the trees, continuing their chorus of "chuk" before flying off in small groups until suddenly the rest of the flock leaves.

Robin (Margo D. Beller)

Sometimes, I see fellow travelers. Robins also poke at the ground and turn over leaves for food and so join the grackle flocks, and then hang around after the bigger birds have left to find what is left over. I have seen grackle flocks include cowbirds, starlings or, rare for my yard, rusty blackbirds (named for a call that sounds like a swinging metal gate needing lubrication).

Starlings are interesting. At this time of year they also mass and you will see them flying and moving like a giant organism in the sky, almost like watching synchronized swimmers in the way they undulate as one. (Do a search for "starlings massing" and watch some of the videos to see what I mean.)  How do these individuals know to do that? I don't know.

What I do know is these invasions are another sign of approaching winter, and just as inevitable.

The Season of Quiet

During the summer I sit on the enclosed porch, look around the colorful and leafy yard and try to imagine the winter scene of bareness and gray. Now it's the opposite. I sit on my porch wearing a down coat and warm hat, my legs covered by a blanket, and try to imagine the leaves are still on the trees.

I am finally at the point in the year where the lawn services are done for the season, the town is no longer collecting leaves (which doesn't stop some neighbors from putting to the curb whatever last leaves may have fallen) and the majority of the trees and shrubs are bare. I am happy to have the quiet, but the continuing cold and grayness of many days plus the darkness at 5 p.m. make me restless, tired and, sometimes, down because my gardening is done and migration is long over. I feel shut in, and it does not help that we are close to the end of another year and there is a more contagious form of COVID-19 that affects even fully vaccinated people like me. That means another winter of avoiding people in the streets and not visiting friends or family. 

But at least there is no snow, at least not yet.

New Hampshire, November 2021 (Margo D. Beller)

To some it is soothing to have a blanket of snow on the ground, the white providing a nice contrast with the gray skies. Those who depend on snow for revenue from winter activities are very happy to have the snow. Those with the strength and energy to snowshoe, ski or snowmobile are also very glad to see the white stuff.

Not me.

It is when the snow falls that I feel my age and am at my most vulnerable. I think of last year when we had two feet of snow on our property. Will that next shovelful of snow from the back path make me breathless or have some sort of attack? How long will it take my husband (MH) to find me if I keeled over? My neighbors look after their own properties and are not inclined to help the people next door they don't know so well. We have no children or grandchildren so we hire someone to plow our long driveway. We do the rest, carefully, on the off-chance someone would want to visit. That has yet to happen.

Cardinal in winter (Margo D. Beller)

It has not been the best year for me. I look back on my health issues and am thankful I survived them and the subsequent treatments, and that MH has been here to watch over me and chauffeur me to medical appointments. I have been regaining my strength, trying to make up for lost time. But I can never be 100% again. I can't go back in time, much as I'd like to do.

So I sit bundled on the porch, refusing to confine myself to the house, watching the feeder birds, enjoying the quiet and looking ahead to the return of spring.

 

Sunday Silence

Once again I'm going old-school, attacking the autumn leaves with broom for my compost pile and the locust pods with rake for the town to take away.

Locust pods, a constant part of the autumn landscape.
(Margo D. Beller)

"Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection," according to Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau knew that wood ensured surviving a cold winter. However, eventually the woodpile would have to be replenished. It is an annual ritual, as expected as the seasons themselves.

I do not look at the locust pods I must rake every year with anything resembling affection.

It is that time again. I am outside in the early morning cool on a Sunday, enjoying some rare quiet, where the only things I hear are the scraping of my rake, the screams of the jay and the tapping of leaves and pods falling to the street in the breeze. It is rare because at this time of year the air is usually filled with the roar of leaf blowers and the stench of the gasoline that fuels them. But not at this hour on a Sunday. At least, not yet.

As sure as the sun rises in the east, during the weekdays the lawn services have been blowing every last leaf off my neighbors' properties. Those who don't use a service do the same on evenings and weekends. Also like clockwork, the articles have come out either directly blasting the use of blowers or making fun of them. But that makes no difference to those in suburbia who equate success with a neatly cropped, leafless lawn.

White-throated sparrows have come south to New Jersey.
(Margo D. Beller)

(Two anti-blower articles, as it happens, were sent to me by my brother-in-law, the teaching naturalist. He lets the wind takes care of what leaves fall on his rural NH property. His son, by contrast, uses a gas-powered, backpack-enabled blower on his property. He must wear ear coverings.)

I have a blower, an old, electric-powered model. I find that unless I am blowing leaves into a rough pile for my husband (MH) and me to rake into tarps, it is useless on the heavier pods. So I have been using a broom on the leaves matting the patio and a rake on the pods littering the driveway and the lawn. MH plans to do one last mowing soon to cut the grass he recently fed and mulch the leaves, and I want the pods out of the grass.

As in past years, I silently curse the person who, 40-plus years ago, thought locust trees would be a fine street tree. The locust leaves are very small but their stems fall and clump when raked. The dark brown pod contains the seeds the birds and squirrels and possibly deer eat and then spread through their poop or their digging. 

I recently finished reading a very interesting book on seeds and the lengths plants go to protect the seeds until they are ready to be expelled into the world and create more plants. During the summer the female locust put out greenish pods, some of which dried out and fell to the ground. But the pods didn't start falling in large numbers until they had developed the familiar tough brown casing to protect the seeds. Now, opening one of the pods, my hand was filled with small brown seeds. If I threw them on the lawn I might have a forest before too long.

Part of the fairy ring. (Margo D. Beller)

As I work I see all the ground ivy taking up space, happily fed along with MH's grass. In one area, a strange circle of mushrooms has sprung up, a "fairy ring." I'm not bothering to pick them because they are likely poisonous. The mower will do the work for me. 

There is always some good in doing this raking. It is another thing I do to prepare for the winter when I won't be working in the garden (except for possibly shoveling snow). When I stopped to straighten my back I could enjoy the increasing color of the leaves in my trees - red maple, brownish-yellow oak, yellow elm. The dogwood tree's red leaves haven't fallen but the fruit is long gone, and with it the catbirds. Now I hear the "old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody" of the white-throated sparrow, which finds my part of New Jersey just fine for winter roosting. I am hearing woodpeckers, including a pileated flying over the trees beyond my neighbor's house across the street. The air is cool, the exercise healthy. I've needed exercise after a summer spent mainly indoors due to heat, humidity and illness.

Now I am making up for lost time.  

Black vulture, a southern bird becoming more common
in the north. (RE Berg-Andersson)

At one point something casts a shadow and I look up to see nine or so black vultures circling, Black vulture is a southern species but, like the red-headed woodpecker, it is slowly extending its range northward as the U.S. continues to warm. These birds might be heading south, but maybe not. I also hear Canada geese honking from the nearby community garden. Canada geese migrate but some found suburban yards, parks and office lawns so pleasant they have stayed, bred and become as much of a pest as the deer.

I hear other birds, including a mockingbird making its rasping "this is mine!" call, no doubt guarding a fruiting tree or bush. Smaller birds are flying between the trees looking for insects to pry out of the bark, including the gold-crowned kinglet, another winter bird that typically doesn't hang around my yard. (It prefers pine forests.)

For now, I'm done. Have I removed every pod? No, but most of them. Did I get every leaf off the patio? Not by a long shot. There are plenty more in the trees to come down. They always come down, as sure as day follows night and autumn follows summer.

And, as expected, now I hear a distant leaf blower. By the time I get to the top of my driveway to put the rake in the garage, a second, louder, blower is going nearby. 

So much for Sunday silence.

Christmas in October

Red and green are the traditional colors of Christmas. There are differing reasons why. According to one site I looked at, use of these colors dates back to the 1300s. As the site puts it, many believe the green represents the eternal life of Jesus while red symbolizes his shed blood. 

Viburnum and berries, 2021 (Margo D. Beller)

However, a different site ties the red to advertising, specifically the suit Santa wore in Coca-Cola's first Christmas-themed print ad, which was extremely successful. The green is thought to be related to holly and other evergreens as part of the holiday's pagan past.

Right now, in October, you could say Christmas has come early for the birds.

The leaves of the viburnum in my backyard are a bright green, contrasting with the clusters of red berries that formed once the spring flowers faded. The same was true for the dogwood.

These fruits are important in the lives of the birds migrating south for the winter. When birds finish their overnight flights, they are very hungry and need food for the energy to continue their journeys. When it gets cold, insects are hard to come by unless they are pried out from under tree bark, as woodpeckers can do with their long, hard bills.

But for other birds, particularly fruit eaters such as robins, catbirds and cedar waxwings, my fruit-laden dogwood was like a big neon sign at a rest stop.

Dogwood berries and reddening leaves.
(Margo D. Beller)

The overabundance of rain we've had for most of this year has been very good to the trees and shrubs. This year a black cherry tree at the edge of my property was laden with fruit. At a certain point in the late summer, robins would fly out from the nearby yew hedge and pick off the cherries, sometimes being very acrobatic in the process.

These cherries are long gone. Several weeks ago I noticed the dogwood was covered with red berries. I also noticed red was coming into the green leaves. Nothing much happened except for the leaves getting redder each day. 

And then, boom: A catbird appeared from a nearby shrub and flew into the tree and moved throughout, eating. So did cardinals and house finches that didn't feel like eating my sunflower seeds. One weekday morning, as I was finishing my coffee on the porch, I saw movement in the tree and saw a small bird flitting around that turned out to be a very special guest, a Tennessee warbler - a first for my yard! It was a one-day wonder. Soon flocks of robins started hitting the tree and now just about all the berries are gone.

How did the birds know when the dogwood berries were ripe enough to eat? I don't know but I do know when the leaves had turned completely red, that is when the most birds showed up. So there may be a connection.

Black cherries before the robins got to them.
(Margo D. Beller)

Many plants fruit at this time of year. The yew hedge was filled with soft red berries eaten by birds and squirrels. The squirrels also seem partial to the small black berries that form in the privet shrubs. Crab apples are particularly prized by mockingbirds, robins and cedar waxwings.These are just a small sampling of plants whose fruits help birds during migration.  

And, of course, they also feed those birds that stick around for the winter, or those that stop their southbound flight in my area. So when the red berries of the viburnum ripen, perhaps after a few frosts, there will be food for the chickadees, titmice and other yard birds.

So these berry-producing plants (like the food from seed heads of spent flowers and weeds) are the gift that keeps on giving, both for the birds and me watching them.

The Season of Abundance

Yesterday I went to two farm markets. The first, where I go for lettuce and chard, among other vegetables, was also offering kale, beets, zucchini, fennel, green beans, radishes and salad turnips, all grown on a large plot of land behind a school. It was not offering tomatoes yet but when I asked about buying a couple of green ones to ripen on my window sill (or fry green) I was directed to a greenhouse filled with rows of green tomatoes of different sizes, all of which will eventually become red and luscious. In another greenhouse were peppers, now green but soon to ripen into various colors. 

Apple sauce, 2021 (Margo D. Beller)

The second farm market is where I go to buy peaches and corn, both offered as "our own." I like knowing where the stuff I buy is grown. 

This is July and here in New Jersey the fruits and vegetables are growing fast and furious. My four pepper plants are filled with growing fruits that are still green. The basil is growing like a weed - I've already harvested enough for two batches of pesto and some basil-cheddar biscuits. I have plenty of daisies, coneflowers and others to pick for the table.

There has been an abundance of many things this year.

There has been an abundance of rain following a winter when over two feet of snow buried my yard. There has been an abundance of heat waves, the first in early June and then at least two more into mid-July. The humidity has been abundant, too, making even "cooler" days in the mid-80s feel oppressive. It seems to me this heat and humidity started earlier this year and when the rain falls the scene looks disturbingly tropical for an area considered a temperate zone.

The Stargazer lilies did extremely
well thanks to the rain. (Margo D. Beller)

All that moisture that started in the spring and now the heat have not only led to a bumper crop of my peppers and flowers but also apples. I picked many and then cut off the parts I could use. I had enough apple pieces to fill a large freezer bag. I finally cooked them yesterday after returning from the farm markets. I had four nicely packed pints of apple sauce and there might be more coming because the tree is still not finished (and there seem to be fewer squirrels in the tree, too).

The moisture has brought an abundance of weeds, especially my old nemesis the ground ivy. A couple of Sundays ago I awoke to a cool, dry morning - a rarity this season - and finally tackled some of the mess in the various garden plots including removing spent daffodil foliage, cutting back assorted branches and pulling out the many, many weeds including what seemed like miles of ground ivy. After many hours of labor I'd say I made a dent, but only a dent.

The ground ivy, as usual, was everywhere I didn't want it.
(Margo D. Beller)

There has been abundance in the bird world, too. After a quiet period when many birds were sitting on or guarding nests, there is now birdsong again - robins, cardinals, chipping sparrows, Carolina wren. The catbirds and jays are more actively flying around, using apple and dogwood branches to look for a meal crawling in the grass below. Raucous families of titmice and grackles fly through the trees or search in the grass for a meal.

And there are now two singing house wrens I can hear from my yard - the one using the nest box I put out and one I can hear from a few yards away. 

When the house wren in my yard hears the other one he flies around agitated and sings all the louder. But lately his song has been a little softer, a little shorter in duration. I've been watching the nest box from my perch on the back porch when I can and I've seen a second wren going in and not coming out while the male sings from a nearby branch. A female sitting on eggs. 

This year's house wren doesn't look that different 
from this one from 2016. (Margo D. Beller)

Until today. Today I've seen a lot more activity, birds going into the box and then coming out, so the eggs must've hatched and now there are tiny baby wrens. Feeding, protecting and cleaning up after them are now the parental pair's priorities. In a week or so, the babies should get big enough that the parents will have to feed them from outside the box. In another few weeks, they'll all be gone. This brood is later than in past years and I'm relieved there was one at all after seeing little activity as recently as a month ago.

When it comes to rain, heat and snow, too much of a good thing is too much. But for vegetables, fruit and birdsong, I wish they would continue beyond the summer.

Broken Homes

I've been watching the wren box from my perch on the back porch and I think something has gone wrong.

Robin on nest, 2019 (Margo D. Beller)

By now there should've been signs of a mother house wren feeding young. I had put the box in the dogwood rather than the apple tree as I have in the past in order to keep the squirrels (and me) from bothering the birds when we went to pick the fruit.

I thought the move had worked. The male wren has been singing up a storm from around the property, including the locust trees in front and the apple tree in back. One time I happened to see it singing from the dogwood and going into and out of the box as if feeding a mate.

Admittedly, I do not spend as much time sitting on the enclosed porch as I'd like every day - things like work intervene - so I may be missing something. It would not be the first time. 

It started me thinking about why nests fail.

I'm no scientist, and there are plenty of scientific papers on the subject, but from my observations I have a few theories.

Cooper's hawk nest after it was abandoned, 2020
(Margo D. Beller)

One of the parent birds might've been killed, either because of a predator (cat, snake, another bird, hit by a car) or disease. Maybe all the heavy rain we've had in the last few weeks created an unhealthy condition in the wooden box that made the bird sick or caused it to leave. 

Maybe the nest was in the wrong location. Was the nest more exposed to the sun because the more open canopy of the dogwood did not shade the box enough during the July-like heatwave we had in late May into early June? Or was the female wren intimidated by the larger and potentially dangerous catbirds and jays flying into the dogwood to survey the ground for food?

I think of the robin nest I discovered in my pear tree in 2019. I watched the female build it high enough off the ground that it was partially blocked by the porch roof, and I'd have missed it entirely had I not seen the pair going back and forth to the tree. Once built, the female settled down, presumably on eggs. The male would come by every so often to relieve her so she could get food. Then, the pair was gone. Squirrels would climb the tree and look in and around the nest. Eventually, it fell apart and out of the tree. 

Eggs in the wrong place, Montezuma
National Wildlife Refuge, NY, 2019
(Margo D. Beller)

Were there ever eggs? Did squirrels get at them? More recently I found a robin in her nest on a window ledge in a bird blind built high off the ground. The windows had screens on them so I could look out at her but not disturb her. This nest would be safe. (The one I and, no doubt, others found on a staircase leading to a platform at a nature center in upstate New York might not have been so fortunate.)

Another reason for nest failure? One or both birds were immature. Instinct told them to mate and build a nest but they might not have known what to do next.

An immature male Cooper's hawk may have been the reason last year's nest failed. I watched - with some trepidation - as the male called and swooped as he helped the larger female bring sticks to the top of a very tall maple tree where branches had created a V that would hold a nest. They mated - noisily - and built. The female started spending time on the nest. Then fish crows discovered it. The female chased them off, with some help from the male. Eventually, both took off and the nest was taken by squirrels.

Nest box in the apple tree, 2020
(Margo D. Beller)

Recently an immature redshouldered hawk has been flying and calling around the area and at one point I saw it flying with nesting materials. I have a rough idea where the nest is but I'm not going to search for it. If the nest is successful there will be enough stress without my hanging around.

As for the wrens, I know for sure another cause of nest failure - parasitism, such as when a cowbird puts one of its eggs in the nest and kicks out the resident eggs - is not involved because the box entrance is too small for a female cowbird to get inside, much less lay an egg. Some birds, such as the yellow warbler, build a new nest on top of the old one when it sees a foreign egg, even tho' there may be its own eggs, too.

Nature can be cruel.

House wrens are not considered an endangered species, and there is always the possibility the singing male will find another mate and the various conditions needed for a successful brood may come together. Or they may not.

I'll have to keep watching.

  

Location, Location, Location

In the dawn's gray light, the house wren begins his bubbly, incessant territorial song. He is better than an alarm clock. I listen through the open window, thinking of how I had hoped to sleep in later. Then I remember, I am lucky to be hearing a wren singing at all.

Wren nest box in its new location.
(Margo D. Beller)

Once again the changes in my yard came fast when winter was finally over. Where once the sun would hit me as I sat on my enclosed porch, now the light is filtered through oak and maple leaves. The sun's arc is now wide enough that my chair gets hit by the early and late sun. 

Besides the tree leaves, the shrubs, lawn and perennials came back with a vengeance. The back garden bed I had re-netted after taking off the protective burlap and cutting back the yew shrubs and the other plants quickly filled with fresh leaves and bright pink and purple flowers on the geraniums, coral bells and columbine. In the front yard, the azeleas, lillies and rhododendron were the best I've seen in years thanks to all the rain we had in the spring. Even Spruce Bringsgreen was covered in fresh blue-green foliage.

On May 7 I was still wrapping the pots of peppers I had put out front in plastic sheeting to protect them from the overnight cold. On May 9 we had a heavy rain. On May 10 the yard was filled with warblers, vireos and even a Swainson's thrush. All of them couldn't continue north to their breeding areas because of the bad weather. The birds were in my yard to take advantage of the oak seeds and insects. They fed and sang for only a day or so before continuing on their way.

But not all the migrants left. Some like to stay in my yard. Earlier this month there were still white-throated sparrows calling and singing their "Sam Peabody" song in my yard, where they had spent the winter. Then the catbirds started arriving. Now those sparrows are gone (but will be back next winter) and the catbirds fill the void with their activity and singing.

Back plot filled with blooming
geraniums, coral bells and 
columbine, with feeder.
(Margo D. Beller)

And then there is the migrant bird I watch for every year, the house wren. Every year I hang a wooden nest box in a tree, hoping a pair will use it to have a brood. Sometimes a wren pair will take over the nest box immediately. Some years it takes a little longer. 

Until this year the box was always hung in my apple tree. Last year I had planned on putting it in another location because when the tree is full of apples it is also full of squirrels, other birds and me trying to knock down as many apples as I can for my own use. The wrens would be disturbed. Two years ago there had been plenty of apples. 

But in 2020 I had forgotten my plan and hung the box in the apple tree as usual. However, in the year of the coronavirus the apple did not put out as many flowers to form fruit, so the picking was done by the time the wrens were feeding their young.

This year I did not forget, and I learned there are some differences using a dogwood instead of an apple tree.

Once I read the first reports of house wrens in my area I hung the box on what I thought was a sturdy branch. But the next strong wind had the box swinging wildly, something that didn't happen in the more densely branched apple tree. Luckily, the dogwood had another set of branches that made a natural V where the box could be hung more securely. 

Then I waited. 

Rhododendron (Margo D. Beller)

On May 4, I heard a house wren singing in the backyard. As I watched from the porch he investigated the box. Then he left. Later that day I was on the porch, looked at the box and was horrified to realize the hinged side that allows me to get in there to clear the nest after the birds have flown south for the winter was hanging open! I quickly got my ladder to climb up and shut the box tight so a bird would want to use it.

That's how things stood until May 9 when another house wren came singing into the yard. This one was more promising. He checked out all the feeders, flew into the dogwood and into the box. He stayed around the yard for a few days and at one point I heard the scolding call of his mate answering him. But on May 13 I realized there was no singing, no birds.

On May 15 I went to the box, intending to take it down and put it in the apple tree, even tho' this is shaping up to be another good year for apples. Then I saw the tell-tale twig sticking out from the box, signifying "this is taken." Was it from the pair? Would they be back? I left the box alone. But there was only silence for nearly a week.

Spruce Bringsgreen in his spring coat.
(Margo D. Beller)

On May 21, another male house wren was in the dogwood singing. He went into and out of the box and stayed in the yard all day. The next day he was back singing and his mate was making trips into the box with nesting material. Was this the pair from the other week? I don't know, but this time it looks like they are staying.

The dogwood leaves shade the box from the sun for most of the day (tho' the foliage is not as thick as it is in the apple tree) and the only things to possibly disturb the wrens are catbirds and others that happen to fly to a dogwood branch for some reason. Squirrels wouldn't be interested now, tho' they might be later in the season if there are dogwood fruits, which are small and red and won't be ripe enough to eat until after the wrens have finished their breeding and left the yard. Right now the squirrels are distracted by the apples that are growing and will soon be all over the yard, attracting deer.

As it was in the apple tree, the box is high enough in the dogwood to be free from danger while not so high that I have difficulty putting it up or taking it down. The box is sturdy despite years of dings. It is a good home in a very good location. 

That's why, as of today, Mr. Wren is still singing that bubbly, incessant song in the gray light of dawn. 

Looking Inward

When I sit on my enclosed back porch, I am usually in my favorite old chair in the corner. I can look to my left and see the feeders but my back is to two of the surrounding houses and I try not to look too much at the third house. When I sit on my porch it is to get away from people and not think about the things I must do such as work. Generally, I am sitting there to listen to the birds in the morning, get some sun on my face as I have my first cup of coffee and let my mind wander.

Porch plants in summer (Margo D. Beller)

Today is a gray, foggy, rainy day, making it easy to look inward and ponder life and death. I am facing surgery this week and trying to keep a positive attitude.

Thanks to the coronavirus, I have a lot of time to look within, maybe too much. I have been spending most of my time at home. On days when I should be walking I sit on the porch and listen. I can find in my backyard many of the same birds I'd find elsewhere. Sometimes something unusual will fly overhead, such as a great blue heron or a raven. I can see or hear these through a porch window or if I stand just outside on the patio.

I have always kept to myself, now even more so. I wave at neighbors, they wave back but we don't socialize. People walking in the street make sure they are on the other side of the road if I am walking along. When I go around the block, I am usually more nervous on the one side of the oval that is on a sidewalked street because there anyone approaching prompts a quandary: Do I walk into the street as we pass or will that person? It is easier to walk on my U-shaped street where there are no sidewalks and I can see my house as I approach.

Looking toward the back of the house from my 
corner chair (Margo D. Beller)

From my corner chair I look at the back of my house. But when the weather is consistently warm I will have plants on the porch to keep me company. These plants don't need a lot of direct light and will appreciate the humidity after a dry winter in my front room. It is not that time yet. 

I also look at a row of empty pots in another corner of the porch. They remind me I have cannas to divide and dahlias to plant, plus a small pepper plant and a tomato to put into bigger pots and move outside. 

From my chair I can see the house feeder. Usually
in May rosebreasted grosbeaks pass through. 
These two are males. I hope to
see more this year. (Margo D. Beller)

Spring is a busy time for me. Besides the plants there are the northbound migrants I would like to see and hear, perhaps birds I have not found for quite some time. It is harder for my husband (MH) and me to hike rocky or hilly trails nowadays. Paths should be reasonably flat and, preferably, paved to save balky knees. This can be limiting but I enjoy MH's company and he is helpful in finding snakes and things on the ground while I am scanning the treetops.

I am looking ahead to that time when we can go out more and not worry about who is near us and whether we have on masks. I'm even looking at the compost pile, which hasn't been turned in too long, with some degree of expectation. But mostly I'm looking within, wondering if I have everything arranged in case the worst happens. As I said, I'm trying to stay positive, but it is not easy. 

Putting Things in Order

When February's snows finally receded in March, I could no longer ignore the devastation of last winter. Branches of shrubs were bent low. Fence posts were askew. Some of the deer netting had been pulled down under the snow's weight or pushed up by hungry deer looking for any food they could find.

March 2021 (Margo D. Beller)

When the snow was gone and the weather became unusually warm for March it was time to put things in order.

All of the plants are perennials and can take care of themselves. Once the snow was gone, the snowdrops and crocuses popped up, albeit a month late. When the temperature jumped into the upper 60s and low 70s, these faded but the daffodils and irises, which had been poking their noses up from the soil, jumped out and, in the case of the daffs, are blooming. Several types of weeds have also come up with no help from me, and a few dandelions are blooming between the cracks in the paving stones on the front walk.

The apple and pear trees plus the shrubs are now either leafing or blooming. To some the bright pink of the quince may look garish next to the yellow of the forsythia in the backyard but I don't mind it at all.

There is more birdsong: cardinals, robins, song sparrows. I am now hearing chipping sparrows and chipmunks, the former welcomed for its dry trill, the latter not so much because of the digging they do even behind the deer netting.

Hellebore. Since I took this
picture it is now flowering.
(Margo D. Beller)

But there are things that need human attention. The butterfly bush and liriope needed to be cut back in early March and are now growing again. Same with the dried ornamental grasses I hacked down and now showing green growth. At some point I have dahlias to pot and cannas to divide. 

Finally, there was the fencing. After the deer found a weakness in the netting and were able to nearly destroy the euonymous bushes in front yet again, I cut everything back, reinforced and tied the netting and fastened it down with garden "staples." Had I known what to expect when I put in these yellow and green evergreen shrubs, I'd have put in something less appetizing to deer.

The area most in need of repair, however, was in back where I cover the netting with burlap to protect the yew shrubs behind. Out of sight, out of trouble is my motto. With these shrubs are other plants that don't need a lot of sun including two pots of hostas I took in for a friend and a hellebore that has bloomed despite the soil being more acidic than it would like. The joe-pyes grow here, as do a pot of perennial geranium, coral bells that attract hummingbirds and a few fringed bleeding hearts.

Repurposing the garden hose
(Margo D. Beller)

It was a job that took many hours because I had to cut back the yews and remove debris from the potted plants. Then the burlap had to be removed, the garden staples pulled up and the deer netting untied or cut off. New netting was put on (doubled above and below) the posts that I thought weren't too bent or shredded from use. I took new, thick garden ties to secure it above and many more garden staples to do the same below. It is both aggravating and calming work that allows me to be outside and listening to the birds.

Finally, I took the old garden hose and put it in to block an opening. Many years ago, a deer got behind the netting and then tried to leave. I woke up to find half the netting was in the yard. Luckily, that was the day I had planned to put in new posts anyway. More recently, a doe put her newborn fawn in back. I had to pull up the posts to let it out. Around that time we got a new hose and so the old one became a deer barrier. (The other end is close to a leader pipe so I can tie the netting to it.)

It is a good feeling to put things in order. When it becomes really hot and things start to overgrow the neatness will disappear. Soon my husband (MH) and I will have to bring out the canna and dahlia pots and get them behind the netting somehow. Weeds will fill the spaces between the plants and create a green carpet I don't need along the walkways. For now I enjoy this feeling of accomplishment when I look at my handiwork.

Backyard daffodils, 2020 (Margo D. Beller)

Nowadays I am putting other things in order, in my life. I will be having cancer surgery in the coming week, a repeat of surgery I had five years ago. I am five years older now, survived a visit to the emergency room because of blood clots and am living in a time when the coronavirus pandemic shows no signs of ending, even with more people (including me) getting vaccinated. I can be hopeful I come through but there is always that possibility something will go wrong. So I am making lists for MH and talking, virtually and via social media, to good friends and family ahead of time. I am writing here. 

Daffodils are blooming, birds are singing. There is so much more to be done. I am looking ahead, but not too far.