Again At Midsummer

Nearly a year ago I wrote a post about what was going on in my yard. In many ways things are the same and things are different this year.

Cherries in various stages of ripeness (Margo D. Beller)

After the house wren family dispersed, I waited to see if another wren would use the nest box. It took five days - not one like last year - for a male to investigate and start singing around my yard. But nothing much happened. No female showed up. Several times the wren would fly to the box but then would leave.

Finally, I investigated. I found the opening to the box was plugged with nesting material for a house sparrow. Neither the nest nor the sparrow would be able to fit through the small opening so the bird gave up. I knew it was a house sparrow because of the nest material. House wrens use twigs. According to the bird experts at Cornell, house sparrows use "coarse dried vegetation, often stuffed into the hole until it’s nearly filled. The birds then use finer material, including feathers, string, and paper, for the lining." They also steal other birds' nests for their own.

I pulled the mess out of the opening but by then it was too late. It takes many weeks for a wren to find a mate, for her to sit on the eggs and raise the young. Southbound migration is only a month or so away. I've heard no  house wren song in my yard, tho' I've heard them elsewhere. I'll take the nest box down soon.

One of many robins in the cherry tree (Margo D. Beller)

Last year the apple tree did not lose its leaves for some time. This year its yellowed leaves are scattered below. The last apple was taken by a squirrel near the middle of June, nearly a month earlier than in the past. The tree survived its surgery but has been hit, as has the rest of my garden, with high winds, searing heat, thick humidity, the occasional flooding downpour and, now, wildfire smoke. Unlike me, it was not affected by the nearly three days we were without power over the July 4 weekend because of hurricane-force winds and hours of rain. Global warming? You be the judge.

The heat and humidity has kept me from doing much in the way of gardening, and the weeds have been taking advantage. But also taking advantage is a cherry tree at the edge of my yard.

I didn't plant this tree. I don't know if a previous owner did or if it sprang up from a dropped seed. This tree's growth was blocked for years by a nearby apple tree and the giant ash tree, both of which I cut down for different reasons. Once those trees were gone the cherry tree got plenty of light and so jumped in height and spread out. This year it was covered in flowers and now is covered in cherries. These are small and sour (yes, I tried a few) and the families of grackles, robins, catbirds and other fruit-eating birds love them.

The cherry tree trunk is the smaller one to the left.
(Margo D. Beller)

The nearby viburnum's berries are currently green but will, I hope, soon turn red. So will the dogwood's fruit. The privet shrubs will soon have their own berries. All of these will feed the birds as they get ready to head south for the winter.

It is hard to believe some birds are already migrating, such as male hummingbirds - which is why the trumpet vines and jewelweeds are flowering for them. At my house I've twice caught sight of a hummingbird investigating flowers but no birds have been inclined to use the feeder I have out, as far as I know.

There are plenty of birds that breed in my area, meaning their spring migration north stopped in my yard or in local parks that provided them with food, water and a protected place to breed. Hearing them singing or flying around gives me something to enjoy when I go out early in the morning nowadays. And there are plenty of fruiting and seeding plants out there - including weeds - that will feed those birds and the others later in the summer when it's time for them to leave.

So Many Babies

The catbird sat on the branch just below the wren nest box. It surveyed the ground below, looking for movement of a worm or insect. Then it flew down to nab its meal.

While it sat there, no house wren came out to chase it from the nest. For the first time in weeks the box was empty. 

Wren nest box, June 2026 (Margo D. Beller)

For the second straight year, after years of just missing, I saw the house wren chicks leave the nest and take their first wobbly flight to where a parent was no doubt calling for it. I was on my porch so I could not hear the parent, but I could see the three chicks as, one by one, they flew to the bare part of a dogwood branch. Each fluttered to keep its balance. One by one each moved to the leaves at the end of the branch and flew in the direction of the blue spruce's boughs.

This was a change. In past years, the wrens would fly in the other direction, to the shrubbery behind the flood wall. But this year a new neighbor had moved in and put up a wall so his dog could run in the yard. While he had put the fence well in from the property line to leave the trees and shrubs standing, the wall might've made the area too confining to the parents. So they led their young to Spruce, who had told me when the male first investigated the box in mid-April.

"They were here, Margo," he told me now, "but soon they all flew down to the ferns you have growing near me. I couldn't see them in the foliage. They might've flown behind your fencing."

This was on Tuesday, June 16, a week after my last post. In the interval the young had grown so big they could only be fed from outside the box. It was only a matter of time before they flew, I thought. And so, again, I was right.

I have not heard any of the wrens in the yard since then but there have been plenty of baby birds calling after their parents to be fed: cardinal, chipping sparrow, catbird, robin, starling, grackle, titmouse. But the yard is different without the sound of a singing house wren.

This fawn from several Junes ago was in the backyard,
under the apple tree and away from the street.
(Margo D. Beller)

Last year the box was empty only a day before another, or possibly the same, male claimed it and started singing. This year there have been no new takers as yet.

Meanwhile, in late May a doe appeared in the backyard nearly every morning, mainly eating weeds in that sheltered area behind the flood wall. I told my husband and MH's immediate comment was, "Is she pregnant?"

Memorial Day to early June seems to be the time when pregnant does give birth to one, two, sometimes three fawns. The fawns are hidden at first, spending their time sleeping like any newborn, surviving on mother's milk. We have found sleeping newborns in the yard in past years. So I understood his question. No, I said.

But I figured there was a fawn somewhere nearby. After a few weeks it would start following Mom around and supplement its milk diet with grass and plants. (A dangerous time for any unprotected plants as the young figures out what tastes good and what doesn't.)

The viburnum stands in front of the flood wall, with the fence
beyond. (Margo D. Beller)

So I was not surprised the other week when I found the fawn hunkered down in the area behind the flood wall. I couldn't see it from where I was sitting outside on the patio. But when first a chipmunk and then a squirrel climbed a tree and started their alarm calls, I went to see if a cat was hiding back there. Instead, there was the fawn. We stared at each other. When deer are small like this they look cute. It is when they grow and destroy my plants that I want to shoot them. (Same with baby Canada geese.)

Well, I said to it, at least your mother didn't leave you behind the deer netting where you'd make a mess trying to get out. (I now use an old garden hose to block the way in behind that fence.)

I moved and then the fawn bounded away in that herky-jerky way colts run, heading for Mom.

I figured Mom would not leave it there alone again and I was right. When I saw it behind the flood wall today, Mom was nearby, behind a privet bush. Both took off, going around the house next door, perhaps to the area where they'd have gone directly had the fence not been there. 

But they'll be back at some point. Whether house wrens are is another story.

House Wrens and a Sea of Green

With the exception of the viburnum, whose flower heads went from greenish yellow to bright white and have now faded before they will eventually produce red berries, all the trees and shrubs in my garden have lost their flowers. No more pink flowers on the dogwood or white blossoms on the apple and pear trees or yellow on the forsythia. The rhododendron and azalea flowers have shriveled and fallen. The irises have finished their bloom and so has the peony.

Viburnum flowers (Margo D. Beller)

Other perennials are now growing and will soon flower. The weeds are way ahead of them and I've already made several long, painful attempts to contain the spread by pulling what I can reach over, under and behind the deer fencing. 

For the most part my yard is a sea of green except where the clover is showing its white flowers in the grass. In the midst of this green sits the house wren nest box.

At this time of year what birds I find in my usual places have ended their migrations to nest and breed. Many of them now have young that need feeding. I hear the young birds calling for food and I see their parents zipping around, gleaning insects from tree leaves. The tree foliage is so thick now I can't see the birds well up there, I can only hear them unless they happen to come lower to hunt on the ground.

The house wrens living in my yard also have young. I estimate they have at least two, maybe three. I'm not sure when exactly the eggs hatched but Mom was in the box a lot at first and now both parents are flying back and forth from the box to remove waste and bring food. Last week the young were small enough for both parents to go inside the box at the same time but usually it is just Mom who goes in. If Dad brings food while she is in the box he gives it to her to give the young.

(I am not humanizing these birds, but it is easier to call them Mom and Dad than to keep saying "the female house wren," etc.)

This year's male house wren. (Margo D. Beller)

After Dad has delivered the food to the nest he sometimes goes to a higher branch in the dogwood and flutters. Then he sings. I don't know what the fluttering means. The singing is the only way I can tell male from female.

Soon the young will get so big both parents will feed them from outside the box, except when Mom squeezes inside to get the waste matter. Eventually, the chicks will be induced to leave the nest and try flying to their parents. With luck they'll make it to the safety of the thick shrubbery across from the box and eventually learn to feed themselves. Then the family will disperse.

Always, there are dangers.

So far this year I have shooed away house sparrows trying to reach into the box to destroy the eggs and take the nest for themselves. They are bigger than wrens so I knew they couldn't get past the small opening on the box to destroy any eggs. Still, I ran them off. I have also run off squirrels several times in the last week because I don't know if they are climbing the dogwood to find insects in the leaves or any fruits being formed or to grab a wren chick.

Until yesterday what I thought was the most horrifying attack I've seen on the nest box - and who knows how many I have missed - was the male red-bellied woodpecker that flew to the box and then stuck its long bill, and longer tongue, inside. At that point there were only eggs. I chased the bird off and later learned from an article that many types of woodpeckers, including the red-belly, eat baby bird brains. I can no longer hear a red-belly in my yard without apprehension.

But worse than that attack was the Cooper's hawk.

Another immature Cooper's hawk atop another feeder pole.
(Margo D. Beller)

Sitting on my enclosed porch with my coffee early in the morning, trying to wake up, I was horrified to see a hawk fly at the nest box as the parents were shuttling back and forth to feed their young. Based on the size I thought, "Cooper's hawk." After hitting the box it flew back to the nearby privet shrub. I ran out clapping my hands to scare it off. When it flew I realized the bird's wings were brown - an immature bird. (Adults have gray wings.)

As I stood near the dogwood after the hawk flew off I heard the cheeping of the wren young.

I went back to the porch and waited for at least one parent to return. After what seemed an eternity, Mom returned and zipped into the box, then left to get more grub. I did not hear the male. It will be much more difficult to feed all those young with only one parent, I thought. That happened several years ago when the male disappeared, the female did all the feeding and then a new male appeared to help her.

(Margo D. Beller)

I went out for a while to do some birding, not wanting to know if the juvenile Cooper's had succeeded in grabbing a meal. (Adult birds are usually much more successful than juveniles that are still learning to hunt.)

When I returned from my time away I went back to the porch, this time with my breakfast. And then I heard Dad. Then I saw Dad and Mom shuttling to the nest box to feed their young. 

The Cooper's had missed. It was as though the attack had never happened. 

This is what life is like for a bird - you migrate, you pick a territory, you find a mate and raise young. If you are lucky they will live to feed themselves, migrate, then come back next year - perhaps to the box I hang in the dogwood - and do it all over again. If a chick trying to fly falls to the ground a jay may grab it for a meal, as I've seen happen. The parents continue feeding what young remain. Do they mourn the loss? Mourning is a human concept. 

Life and death are everyday occurrences in nature. There is very little I can do, but I try to keep the cycle going in my yard.

For now I'm watching the nest box like a hawk.

And Then There Were Two

Since my last post I haven't spent much time in the yard because it is migration time. I've risen early and gone places at various distances from my home, usually without eating. The early birder gets the birds as they look for food. Then I come home around 9 a.m. for my own breakfast. In good weather I take my food out to my enclosed porch and sit so I can watch the house wren nest box.

In a previous post I mentioned hearing the first house wren on April 19, 2025.  Exactly one year later, a male house wren started singing in the yard, two days after I put up the box. But things never seem to go as planned with these birds. After a day of seeing it around the box, the wren seemingly left.

Then, according to my notes, on Thursday, April 23, as I pulled the car out of the garage to go off one early morning, I heard a house wren singing very close, which meant it was on the opposite side of the yard from where the nest box hung. Was this the same wren or a different one?

The tell-tale stick telling other wrens this box is taken.
April 28, 2026 (Margo D. Beller)

I got my answer the next day when the house wren male continually sang from different parts of the yard as I ate my breakfast. Then it came to fuss over the box, bringing in a few sticks to give a prospective mate the idea that this would make a good spot for her nest. But I saw no second house wren that day and he soon left. 

On Saturday, April 25, it rained buckets for about 12 hours. The next day I could see the box had gotten plenty wet. I hoped it was dry inside. I saw no activity that day but I heard the male house wren singing almost continually, advertising his availability to any female.

Finally, on April 27, I saw a second wren come to the box. To me all house wrens look alike - they have no difference in size or color. The only way I could tell which was which was the male sat on a branch above the box and sang a bit while the female silently examined the box inside and outside. Then the two flew off together.

"So he has a mate," I thought. 

When I was next on the porch I saw the tell-tale stick coming out from the bottom of the box. That stick means that "this nest is taken."

This is far from new activity. I've been writing about house wrens since at least 2011. When I provide a box they have come every year, no matter which tree I securely hang it in. Every year they do the same thing - look at the box, decide to take the box, create a nest, defend it, raise young, leave with them once they can fly. To me this never gets old. 

Today, resting after hours of birding, I sat on the porch and watched the female furiously adding more sticks to the box. The male sang nearby as she worked on her nest. It is interesting to watch her bring a stick and then try to figure out how to get it into the box. Sometimes the stick is dropped. Sometimes it is broken. Eventually she figured out she can turn her head and put the stick in that way. 

I don't see the male as she does this but I can certainly hear him. He is still singing his loud territorial call. He'll continue to do that until eggs are laid. Then he will sing more softly so as not to call attention to the nest. To me it sounds like the call is intended to assure his mate he is around to defend the nest or tell her he'll watch things while she gets some food for herself.

This 2018 picture of the wren nest I cleared from the box
gives you an indication of what's in there, mainly done by the female.
(Margo D. Beller)

When she took a break from her nest-making labors she stood for a while on top of the nest box. She then flew down to nearby bushes where she can find what she needs, be it sticks or food. 

Every year when the nest is done and the wrens - which pair only for breeding and then separate - have gone south in the fall, I empty the box to clean it. Every year I am amazed at how tightly packed the stick nest is inside. The wrens usually have a brood of three chicks. That's a lot of birds jammed into what looks like a small box. But house wrens are small birds, particularly when just hatched.

Aside from those few sticks the male put in to "stage" the box, the female does all the work building the nest. He won't enter the box again except when the chicks are born and he helps her feed them and remove the poop.

She could be sitting on eggs as early as this weekend. And then things will really get interesting.

Spruce Makes a Discovery

Early in the morning the birds are calling. They are proclaiming their territories as they search for food and a mate. If that is when they call then that is when I go outside on my back patio with the Merlin app on my phone to hear what's out there.

A blowup of this year's tenant getting the box ready as I photographed the
blooming dogwood. (Margo D. Beller)

Things continue to bloom in the garden. While the daffodils and forsythia have faded, the peony and lillies are growing, as are the hellebore's foliage, the spreading lily of the valley and the hostas in their pots. The andromeda bushes are covered in white bells the bees investigate, the apple tree I'm monitoring is covered in blossoms and the dogwood buds have opened to produce pink flowers for another year.

Unfortunately, the weeds are also flowering - garlic mustard, dandelions and, the bane of my existence, ground ivy. There are many others, including some growing in places it will be hard for me to get at.

Blooming andromeda bush (Margo D. Beller)

When I am walking around the yard with the phone I usually say good morning to Spruce Bringsgreen, the silver spruce we planted in 2007. Spruce is at his full height and, at 19, has been producing cones for the past ten years. 

This time, Spruce spoke first.

"Margo," he said, "this morning I saw there's a house wren going into the nest box!"

Yes, I said, I know. He's been singing in the yard since the day after my husband and I put the nest box into the dogwood. 

Blooming apple tree (Margo D. Beller)

This is our annual ritual, putting up a box to attract a pair of house wrens I can watch from my chair on the enclosed porch. I follow various bird lists for the first mention of house wren showing up in New Jersey. The closer it gets to my home county the more anxious I get to put up the nest box.

The box is usually visited quickly.

This year, right after putting it up, a pair of black-capped chickadees investigated. These birds are the only ones, aside from the house wren, small enough to get through the opening. But the birds, which usually nest in tree cavities, did not stay. That is just as well because a determined house wren will destroy a chickadee nest and take it over - I've seen that happen - just as a determined house sparrow would do the same thing to a house wren were it not too big to fit through the opening.

Blooming dogwood with nest box (Margo D. Beller)

One day after the box went up, I heard the distinctive house wren song. Two days after, a bird investigated. A day after that, the male wren brought a few sticks to the box - staging it, you might say, to interest a female wren. So far I have not seen more than the one wren in my yard but I'm sure that will change when the weather consistently warms and the winds come out of the south and blow more birds to my area.

"He's a little guy," Spruce said, "a bit smaller than what I've seen at the box before."

Perhaps, I said. According to the people at the Cornell Lab, a house wren is anywhere from 4.3 to 5.1 inches long. But, I added, I know that even if this wren is on the small side he will be just as feisty in protecting his territory.

"Yes, at first light he started singing up a storm. Real loud for such a small bird," Spruce added. "I hope he finds that mate."

Spruce and I will know how successful the house wren is soon enough.

Spruce in spring (Margo D. Beller)

Spring Wonders

In the small gap between the winter's foot of snow and the advent of unusual April heat in my part of the country, we had spring.

In early March the weather warmed enough to melt the last of the snow, including what was piled at the top of the driveway. The crocus bloomed, the snowdrops struggled to bloom and the daffodils started growing through the winter debris. In the space of two days I could finally clear the front garden beds and cut down the dried ornamental grasses so the daffodils growing in this area could be seen. Six months' worth of collected brush was put at the curb.

Dogwood buds, before they opened and the leaves appeared.
(Margo D. Beller)

I had time to again marvel at how my perennials are able to survive an unusually cold and snowy winter to grow again in the spring without any assistance from me. Then the temperature again became very cold.

That did not stop the plants from growing or the birds from singing in the early morning. The robins, Carolina wrens and jays were particularly active. Woodpeckers proclaimed their territories by drumming against trees. Despite the cold I went outside with Merlin to do a census of what was in the vicinity. (Two days ago I saw the first report of house wren in the area. My husband helped me put up the nest box. A wren came to investigate a day later and I heard one sing this morning.)

Slowly the temperature warmed. The maple tree flowered. The viburnum and pear tree started leafing, as did the lilac. At the very end of the Lenten period there were flowers on the Lenten Rose (hellebore). The dead, brown leaves started falling off the euonymous shrubs, revealing the fresh green and yellow foliage the deer will try to get at through the fencing.

Spruce continues to stand tall and, once again, has put out cones. He hosted some unusual winter visitors this year - a pair of red-breasted nuthatches. I stand in awe of him, seeing how much he has grown since he was planted in late 2007.

However, the other tree planted at that time, the dogwood, continues to concern me. Ever since having more than half of the dogwood cut down I wait to see if the remaining live half will bloom and leaf out. This year I could see flower buds but would they open? Thanks to the heat that came upon us during the last week and a couple of brief but heavy rain showers, the buds have started opening and the leaves are growing.

The apple tree starting to show leaves. It now is covered in blossoms.
(Margo D. Beller)

And then there's the old apple tree. Last year the tree leafed, bloomed and then one big branch went dead. As with the dogwood, I had the dead part cut down. Would the tree survive?

So far it looks like it has. The tree started growing leaves and, as of today, there are blossoms. Each flower is a potential apple. But I am still watching to see how the tree progresses as the season continues. The pear tree, meanwhile, has many flowers in the upper branches I can't get at to cut back. I hope the squirrels get to the fruit because, as I found out years ago, the branches of the pear can't withstand the weight of a bear.

After all the snow the plants appear to be doing quite well despite the current heat. The azalea buds are about to open. The grape hyacinth is thriving in a way I have not seen in years. The lilies and peony are growing so fast I've had to put in supports sooner than expected. 

The New England aster I planted last year is leafing but I am not sure if the lavender has survived, or if I killed the anemone. I've put the anemone in a different pot with fresh soil in what I hope is a better place in the yard. I will be watching for signs of life. If it is alive it won't flower until autumn.

By which time the spring wonder of my garden will have long been replaced by the tedium of weeding and thoughts of putting the garden to bed before another winter.  

The Coming of Spring

This morning several cardinals were singing. To me it is a wonderful sweet sound. To them it is a battle cry - don't even think of coming into my territory.

Despite the foot of snow we received days ago, which unlike the last foot of snow has been melting steadily because we are not caught in a prolonged deep freeze, birds are already setting their territories in preparation for attracting a mate, creating a nest and raising young.

A pair of cardinals, one of my favorite pictures. 
(Margo D. Beller)

The weather people say spring starts on March 1, despite what it might say on your calendar. For me spring starts when the migration forecast map is reactivated by birdcast.org. The map showing the movement of migratory birds shut down in November, signalling the end of southbound movement. Well, now early northbound movement is starting.

Here in my yard I can expect the male (and occasional female) juncos to leave for their northern breeding grounds and for the catbird to arrive to raise young here during the summer. For now, though, the cardinals and woodpeckers that are here all year are already making preparations thanks to the increasing amount of light during the day that has triggered their hormones to start working.

Cardinals mate for life, and this year the snow pack has made my seed feeder very popular with at least three pair. The resident pair in my overgrown yew hedge is quick to fly in and chase another cardinal away. When the pair is on the feeder the male sits nearby as the female eats, then he comes to eat when she flies off. Rarely do I see a male on one side of the feeder and the female on the other. A lot of time the female waits for the male to finish eating and leave so she can get some food.

Just after the last snowstorm. (Margo D. Beller)

Meanwhile, at the suet feeder there have been two female downy woodpeckers. One - perhaps older, but certainly more dominant - will chase away the other. When the dominant one is gone the other tentatively approaches. Sometimes she will fly to the food and quickly go back to the nearby dogwood tree. When she thinks it is safe she will return to eat. With any luck she gets enough fat in her before something else - such as a larger hairy or red-bellied woodpecker - comes in for a meal. All the woodpeckers in my area are calling as they form pairs and hammer out nests in trees.

As the snow continues to melt, grass and soil are revealed, giving the birds another food source. Insects appear, which provide protein. My seed and suet will provide a quick meal, perhaps enough energy for the birds to have the strength to fly farther afield to set their territories for the spring.

Soon enough, the feeders will come inside for the season, and I'll be outside looking for the birds passing through on their way north.

I Don't Count (Don't Ask Me)

Lately, I have found I can no longer do on my computer the things I was doing just fine before. This is not so much because of any infirmity on my part but because these websites have tech people and I am convinced these tech people must change things in order to keep their jobs.

So now instead of signing into one of my emails with a password I have to click more buttons in order to do so. The way I used to print was changed after the last alleged upgrade. When I downloaded a document as a pdf recently I got a pdf.aspx I couldn't open without a "third-party program." I had to look up how to change it back to a pdf so I could print it.

None of this has saved me any time or made my use of the computer any easier. I didn't ask for these changes, they were foisted upon me.

Not using eBird. (RE Berg-Andersson)

In the name of security, several sites I've signed into for years recently asked me to create a new password. I get it, people can hack into your computer if they get your password, although some disagree how often these passwords have to be changed. I disagree, too, considering the several data breaches that affected me within the last year that did not involve these websites forcing the new password.

So I am more than a little disappointed the good people behind the Great Backyard Bird Count, held every year during the Presidents' Day weekend, have made filing my bird lists more high-tech and less user-friendly. The organizations involved include the Cornell Ornithology Lab (creator of the Merlin app I use), Birds Canada and the national Audubon Society.

In the past I could go to a dedicated site, sign in and then attempt to go through the steps to post the number of birds I saw, where, under what conditions, what day and what time. 

That has changed. 

There is still a dedicated site, www.birdcount.org. But now to report you must use either the Merlin app, the eBird Mobile app or send the information to the eBird website. For this I would have to create an account.

I have no interest in creating an eBird account because I don't care to use eBird to list my sightings. Sure, I look at the eBird lists to see what others have found in particular areas, including my home county. But when you file to eBird it is expected you will keep a COUNT of how many birds you've seen every time you go out birding.

Still not using eBird. (RE Berg-Andersson)

When I am out in the field, with binoculars around my neck, a stick in one hand and the Merlin recording app in the other, it is hard enough just finding a bird by eye or ear without taking the extra step and counting.

Say I see a couple of titmice as I walk in one direction and I then see a couple of titmice on the way back - have I seen the same two or four?

Say I am by a frozen pond where the one bit of open water contains what looks like hundreds of Canada geese (plus others - as I saw several winters ago). These geese aren't sitting still waiting to be counted. Most people reporting huge numbers are estimating, and while they are counting and estimating they are missing other birds flying or swimming around.

I support what Cornell and the others are doing. The Great Backyard Bird Count helps scientists understand bird populations and their health by collecting data on bird sightings from participants around the world. This information is very important for monitoring changes in bird species and their habitats, especially as the environmental changes - the climate change the Trump administration considers a hoax. (More on that in a separate blog post.)

And I can understand why you have to post with Merlin and eBird. Cornell runs Merlin and eBird. It built the infrastructure. Why create a separate site when you have already spent a lot of time and money on a technology platform that can entice more birders into creating more accounts to post their findings?

A cardinal, one of the many nice birds I've seen in the last few days 
without reporting to eBird. (Margo D. Beller)

Why? Because some of us would rather concentrate on birding than keeping count and filing electronic paperwork. 

Obviously, I'm no "citizen scientist." I'm just a backyard birder.

So, for what it is worth, here is what I saw or heard in the area of my backyard between Feb. 12 and today, Feb. 14, 2026, with help from Merlin:

Fish crow, American crows, mourning doves, a ton of juncos, downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpecker, a red-bellied woodpecker, jay, too many house finches, two female and one male purple finch, male red-breasted nuthatch, titmice, starlings, grackle, robins, mockingbird, two white-breasted nuthatches, a pair of cardinals. 

Not bad, for winter.

Survival of the Smallest

When I went outside at 8 a.m. today it was 1 degree F, minus 17 windchill. I went outside to hang two bird feeders.

We in my part of the U.S. have been suffering through a long, dangerous cold period. The snow that fell heavily at the end of last month, and which had melted to about six inches thanks to several days of temperatures above freezing, is still blanketing the yard. Deer and other creatures had started crossing the snow in their search for food.

Black-capped chickadee (Margo D. Beller)

Despite my best efforts, a squirrel had managed to leap high enough to grab the end of the long feeder and pull itself up. Judging by the level of seed, it ate, or dropped, quite a lot. I took that feeder inside. By the end of the day I had taken the other two feeders inside because snow was expected and the winds the next day could reach over 40 miles per hour.

And then the temperature really came down.

Today, the wind was "merely" 15 miles per hour. The birds might not come immediately to the seed and suet feeders but I know they will come, because they must. That's why I went out.

There are not many feeders hanging in my neighborhood. Multiple pairs of cardinals have shown up in my yard, either on the seed feeder or waiting their turn in the bushes. If I see a male chase off a female I know they are not a pair. Pairs sit on either side of the feeder. When the female flies off, the male follows.

Unusual birds may come to eat when they can't otherwise find food. Two days ago a distinctive male purple finch came for seed. He was a one-day wonder. I've had red-breasted nuthatches, smaller than the more usual white-breasted nuthatch, coming to the suet for weeks. These unusual birds would only be at my feeders because they can't find food in their more northern winter territories. 

The birds follow each other to food sources. If a large bird like a blue jay or red-bellied woodpecker flies to my feeders, smaller birds are sure to follow - and vice versa. The wintering juncos are among the first to the feeders in the morning, which attracts the attention of other birds.

One of them is the black-capped chickadee, one of my favorite birds. It is a bundle of energy, exploring everywhere in the search for food. Its territorial song, a descending series of notes, sounds like it is saying "Hey, Sweetie!" Its call is its name: dee, dee, dee. It is in my yard all year long, whether I have feeders out or not. 

It is a small bird that grabs a seed and then flies to a bush to pound the hull to get at the sunflower. It quickly yields the feeder when the slightly larger titmouse flies in. I usually see one, sometimes two at a time.

While my husband and I can hunker down under quilts overnight, chickadees and others are trying to find what shelter they can. They use the yew hedge. They use Spruce. They use cavities in trees. They use nest boxes. They may not even be in my yard but they come knowing there is a dedicated food source here.

According to the book I happen to be reading, "Birds in Winter: Surviving the Most Challenging Season" by Roger F. Pasquier, the priority is finding a roosting site offering protection from predators, wind, rain or snow. That site might be with others by night; by day, the bird returns to its territory.

The chickadee needs to eat enough to create fat reserves that, with puffing up its feathers, keep it warm. It eats and it also caches food in various places it can reach when the weather worsens.

Cardinal pair (Margo D. Beller)

After putting out the feeders I came into my warm house and slowly removed my many layers - boots, long hooded down coat, gloves, wool hat, wool balaclava for my neck and face. Weather like this is dangerous, especially to someone considered a "senior." Even after I put the layers away I still felt weighed down and cold, despite the furnace roaring. Winter makes me feel older than my age, and I know I can do nothing about the cold or anything else.

While I can feel sorry for myself the chickadee doesn't have time or inclination to do that. Its only worry is survival. It must eat so it can still be around when the temperature warms, the snow melts and it's time to find a mate and start breeding more chickadees. 

I should start thinking like a chickadee.

Feeding the Birds

A week after the last snowstorm, just as everything had about melted except for the snow mounded by the plow at the curb and the top of the driveway, we were hit with over a foot of snow. We avoided most of the ice. 

The people we pay managed to make the driveway usable for our all-wheel-drive Subaru when I had to go to a longstanding medical appointment the next day. They also cleared our front walk. That left the rear walk to my husband (MH) and me, after which we dug a trench to the feeder poles. (The feeders had been inside during the Sunday storm.)

The curved blade of this shovel is 12 inches long.
(Margo D. Beller)

Remembering how, during another foot+ snowstorm 12 years ago this month, the desperate squirrels had used the ice-covered snow as a platform to jump over the baffle to the feeders, we cleared space around the poles this time and hoped it would be enough.

It wasn't.

Our snowstorm has been followed by a period of intense cold where daytime temperatures have not gotten much above 20 degrees F and the overnight temperatures have been in the single digits, with windchill in negative numbers. In the immediate aftermath of the storm there was little in the way of bird movement. Nor were there deer or other animal tracks. (Except for those digging out their driveways after the town plow cleared the street, you didn't see much in the way of people either.)

The back path we shoveled. (Margo D. Beller)

There was too much snow in my usual areas for me to do any birding, though I noted what birds I heard or saw while running errands or putting the house feeder back outside each morning. (With the bears in their dens, two feeders that deer can't reach to tip out seeds are left outside for now.) 

Two days later I saw the first junco on the flood wall and the first squirrel climbing down a yard tree. Since then three types of woodpecker and, once, a red-breasted nuthatch have come to the suet. A female cardinal sat on one side of the house feeder while her mate sat on the other side. Jays swooped in, as did house finches. Things seemed to be getting back to "normal" again.

The prolonged intense cold has frozen rivers and lakes. Any bit of open water
will draw land and water birds. But the paths are too snowy to
look for these birds. (Margo D. Beller)

Then, four days after the storm, I happened to look out the kitchen window and saw a squirrel on the long, "squirrel-proof" seed feeder. I ran out on my enclosed porch to rap on the window and scare it off. 

This may seem cruel but I am fanatical when it comes to keeping pests like squirrels and deer out of my yard and away from the feeders. The seed is to keep the cardinals, titmice, chickadees and other yard birds alive. 

From 2014. The feeder on the left is the one that had
the squirrel on it this year. This pole was later destroyed by a bear.
The other feeder pictured is currently inside. (Margo D. Beller)

That's why within an hour I was out with my shovel, digging a wider area around the two feeder poles to make it harder for the squirrels to jump. Luckily for me the snow was still soft enough under a thin crust for me to move quickly and with a minimum of strain. Since then I have seen no squirrels on feeders but I have seen at least three UNDER feeders to get the seeds dropped by the sloppy juncos, house finches and occasional house sparrow. So don't worry about the squirrels.

Winter is a harsh season. In this area what birds don't head south for warmer weather have to find food where they can. At Great Swamp recently I was able to see large groups that included seven types of sparrows foraging at the side of the road on what ground had been churned up by the plow. Winter birds have to find seeds and other food in that ground to stay alive. They also fluff their feathers for insulation, shiver to generate heat, shelter in trees or shrubs and, most important, store food for later use.

This is the replacement feeder pole. It may be hard to see the wider
area dug around it, but it has kept the squirrels at bay.
(Margo D. Beller)

So in a small part of the universe - my yard - I am trying to help the birds. Yes, I have a motive - I want to be able to see them, especially when I can't leave the house. Winter is a harsh season for me, too.

However, I know that little by little the snow will eventually melt. I am looking forward to a few days this week when the temperature rises above freezing during the day. I want to go back to my usual birding places, secure in the knowledge I won't slip and fall in snow. At some point the whiteness and ice everywhere will be a distant memory when the trees leaf out, the flowers bloom again, the insects appear and all the birds - migrant and yard - get to eat.

Until then, I feed birds, not squirrels.

Broken-winged Birder

Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die life is a broken-winged bird.

--Langston Huges

Years ago I wrote a post about birding with disabilities after talking to a woman at Great Swamp who birded from her car because of her walking problems.

I think of her because now I can't drive.

Three weeks ago I fell in a field full of flowers when a bumble bee, perhaps thinking my red hat a flower, charged me. I reared back, lost my balance and went down on my butt and my left wrist. Luckily, my husband (MH) was within shouting distance. He got me to a bench, got help and was able to drive to me so I could get home to ice and painkillers.

(Margo D. Beller)

What I thought was a sprain turned out to be a fracture. I will spare you the sequence of subsequent events. Now I have a cast on and while I can do a lot - such as type this post with two hands - I can't drive.

You learn pretty quickly how fast you lose your independence and have to depend on other people for basic things. But while I have been slowly improving and doing more, there is one thing I still can't do:

I can't go birding in the early morning during prime southbound migration weather.

MH, you see, is not an early riser if he can help it. He rises to take me to appointments if they are early but if there are no appointments he wants to rest his weary muscles that have been used more than they have been in years since my injury.

So my field of operations is limited. I can walk to the outer fringes of Greystone, or sit on the back patio, both with the Merlin app on to help me. When I hear a chip Merlin tells me is an American redstart, and then I see the black and orange male flitting around in a tree, I think of how many more birds I could see beyond the backyard jays, cardinals and woodpeckers if I could drive farther afield and stay out longer.

But, I have learned, MH has worried about me taking these long trips alone. My recent fall was within shouting distance of him. I've had other falls when he wasn't around. I could get up then. I might not be so lucky next time.

So I do what I can and wait for a day he'll feel up to driving me someplace and we'll walk and, with any luck, still find treasures, even after the cast comes off.

An Exercise in Futility

Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.

--Simone de Beauvoir

The author of "The Second Sex" was not a gardener. If she was she would've said "weeding" instead of housework.

I, however, am a gardener. With a three-day holiday weekend all but assuring me of lots of people on the trails I walk to listen for birds, I took one of those days to bring my pail, bench and spade to the ornamental grass garden to get at the weeds that have run rampant thanks to heat, rain and lack of attention from me.

An assortment of weeds including milkweed, wild strawberry, 
ground ivy, oxalis and others I can't identify.
(Margo D. Beller)

Weeding is the last thing I want to do on a hot summer morning, but this holiday weekend was blessedly less humid and a tad cooler, allowing me to gird myself for battle. And battle I did.

I can identify many, but far from all, of the weeds I was pulling. There are strawberry vines, a clover-like plant called oxalis, my old nemesis the ground ivy, wild violets, dandelions. There is also lawn grass that has gone feral and moved into the plant area. 

On another cool morning I had spent several hours pulling oxalis that had grown so tall it was obscuring the plants in the sunny front plots. This time, however, the oxalis was more spread out, in some areas almost like a vine, somehow growing behind the tall ornamental grasses in much less sun.

Milkweed has shown up in this area, but because it doesn't get much sun it hasn't grown the flowers that benefit monarch butterflies. But the plant spreads through underground runners, so pulling up what is above the ground doesn't stop what is below.

The sharp blades of ornamental grass.
(Margo D. Beller)

I have to tip my hat to weeds and their methods of survival. Oxalis and the other weeds I was pulling from behind and beneath the ornamental grasses get only a small bit of sun, usually in the early morning and late afternoon, but it is enough for them. With a spade oxalis comes up easily but it is also fragile and will break. You grab a handful, pull it out, then see you left some behind. Even if you get these there may be more under the soil surface.

Some of the weeds I pulled were growing next to stones, which makes the plants hard to get with the spade. They also grow next to plants I don't want to uproot, which means I have to be careful with the spade not to take out a lily of the valley, for instance.

If the weed has a taproot, like the dandelion, I can dig down but rarely pull up the entire root. Usually some is left behind, assuring more to come later. One of the weeds I can't identify could grow into a small tree if left alone, so I try to pull it out or at least take off the foliage to slow the growth.

Ornamental grass (right) and prickly yew (Margo D. Beller)

In this particular plot, there is no netting. That is because I put in plants deer don't tend to browse, in this case three large ornamental grasses that grow after the daffodils are finished and shelter some smaller plants including a bleeding heart. So the weeds grow among the grasses and get wonderful protection. I have to be careful not to get cut by the knife-like blades as I move next to and beneath the grasses.

Also, there is a yew - taxonomy unknown - that sprang up from someplace else, filling a space when several scotch broom shrubs died from the effects of too much snow and too much cold wind one winter. Deer don't eat this yew, unlike the yew hedge nearby, because the leaves of this particular yew are prickly and have a strong scent. I can tell you these leaves scratch as much as the grasses.

Perhaps the greatest protection the weeds have is their sheer number. Eventually, they wear me down. I fill two loads in my large pink pail for the compost pile, and then I look at what is left and feel despair. 

I try to comfort myself by thinking, well, I heard lots of nice birds - house wren, catbird, chipping sparrow - and spent time outdoors in nice weather. I tell myself that at least I made a dent in the weeds - though deep down I know that by disturbing the soil I have created space for more of them to later take root.

And in the end, it's all compost. (Margo D. Beller)

It is only later I feel the mental and physical exhaustion and find the bites from insects that didn't like having their homes uprooted.