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.

Rebirth

This is the time of year when I am always amazed my plants have survived the winter, especially the older trees and shrubs in the backyard. The apple tree, lilacs, pear tree and viburnum are leafing. The dogwood is showing buds that will become flowers two years after half of the tree died and had to be cut down. The daffodils, after several false starts when the weather turned cold, have bloomed in profusion. Many of the irises I moved to another plot last year are growing despite chipmunks at first digging them up. 

After the haircut (Margo D. Beller)

As usual in the spring deer found a way to get through a weakness in the netting to eat some of the euonymous bushes as they started to put out fresh growth. So the fence posts were straightened and increased, the netting restrung. Before doing that I hacked the euoymous shrubs back severely. The plants are secure but now I wonder how I'll be able to do maintenance when the daffodils die back in a few weeks.

I have not dealt with putting the canna pots out front yet because we've had weather see-sawing between above and below average temperatures. With the chipmunks in mind I am going to limit what pots I put out front, including any herb or vegetable I may buy to grow.

Finally, I had to give my houseplants a haircut after leaving them untended (except for watering them) all winter. They won't go out to the enclosed porch before Memorial Day, and I plan to be very careful to monitor for any insect invasion, such as last year's fungal gnats.

Before it was brought inside for the winter in 2024.
(Margo D. Beller)

The most problematic, as usual, was the big houseplant.

You'll recall I had allowed this once-small houseplant to get so big it had become very difficult to move in winter, especially up and down the three steps to my front room. Last year I tried leaving it outside but when the wind blew it would fall over, despite its bracing. I moved it inside the porch into the corner where it would get a few hours of sun. Alas, when it got very cold the plant became very stressed. I've never intentionally killed a plant and wasn't about to start. So I brought it inside to the kitchen, but it didn't get any natural light there. I wound up moving it into a corner of my vestibule where it would get some light from the front room.

After several months a strange thing happened: Despite dim light and dry heat, it started growing new leaves for the first time in years.

First that growth was at the top, the new leaves scraping the ceiling. But then the plant started growing from the bottom. Now what to do? Well, when the top leaves started dying en masse, it was easy to decide to use my lopper and chop down what had become an unwieldy tree. With the braces that had held up the plant now gone (and used to reinforce the deer fencing) it was much easier to move the pot to the front room.

Spruce at right, watching the big plant.
(Margo D. Beller)

The other morning I told Spruce Bringsgreen, the blue spruce we planted in 2007, what I had done and why his plantmate would not look the same when back on the porch this year. Last year Spruce had watched over this plant once I moved it inside and fretted about what to do as winter approached.

"That's OK," he said. "I understand why that had to be done. Rather than kill it outright you gave it a new chance to live and grow."

True, I said, and that's what Spring is all about - rebirth.

My Evolving Garden

"Gardening is an instrument of grace." —May Sarton

I went outside one morning between rain storms to cut some flowers for the kitchen. At the time what was blooming were white Shasta daisies, yellow daisy-like flowers that have spread beyond the two plants my sister-in-law gave me, purple salvia, some zinnias and purple coneflowers. The early spring flowers were long gone and the fall flowers - rose of Sharon, sedum - were still in bud. 

Garden flowers - zinnias, yellow daisies, goldenrod, coleus, coneflower.
(Margo D. Beller)

As I was preparing the flowers for the vase I thought about how my garden has changed over many years .

When we bought our house decades ago, the area in front of the bay window was flanked by two large rhododendrons and three azalea shrubs between them. At the side of the house were drifts of daffodils. In the back was a plot of the ground cover pachysandra. There was no patio, no paving-stone walkway. In the front, the dirt path had large flat stones for walking to the front door. I don't remember if anything was growing along that walkway.

Then we had to have major work done on the foundation. All those plants I mentioned above - gone. I regretted losing those daffodils and the rhododendrons.

The rhododendron I planted. (Margo D. Beller)

So when the work was done and it was time to plant a new garden I had to take into consideration zoning rules (a "park-like" lawn on the 35-foot setback that came nearly to the house), whether the plants needed sun or shade and, especially important for me, what kind of pretty flowers would they produce.

I planted a rhododendron where one of the previous owner's plants had been. I flanked the area with two rose of Sharons. In between were a row of yellow and green euonymous shrubs and purple asters at the front. I was not thinking in terms of perennials vs. annuals or how fall-blooming plants like asters would look in the spring. Like the plants, my thinking would eventually change.

Along the now-bricked front walkway I put in azaleas. In back, small yew shrubs. Where the daffodils had been, some andromeda bushes.

It didn't take long before I started learning about the animals that roamed the property, especially rabbits and deer.

After too many mornings when I discovered a rabbit nibbling on the asters, I bought a small fence to keep them away. That sorta worked (and thanks to the increase in the fox population I haven't seen a rabbit in the yard in years). But then I'd see damage to the asters and the euonymous shrubs and figured out something bigger was stepping over the low fence and helping itself. 

I can't remember how long it took to figure out I had a deer problem. I started reading about deer and what they are likely to eat, and quickly realized I had created a veritable White Castle for Odocoileus virginianus.

Columbine (with seedheads) that sprung up between euonymous shrubs.
(Margo D. Beller)

There are ways to deter deer. You can continually spray foul-tasting stuff on your plants, you can get a dog to patrol the property and pee in the garden so the deer smell it and stay away from a potential predator, you can put up barriers such as a fence or you can plant things that a deer is generally presumed not to like (but I've found will try anyway).

I eschewed the spray and I don't have a dog, so I went with fencing and plants - such as ornamental grasses and onions - in areas where I didn't put up a fence. 

After the azaleas stopped blooming I realized having just these plants looked boring, So I planted low juniper bushes between each azalea to make it more interesting. I discovered the joy of daffodils when a now-former neighbor insisted I fill a bucket with them after her son-in-law rescued hundreds from a garden crew that had dug them up from an office park. I bought more daffodils and got even more from a friend who said she didn't want them in her garden. Eventually daffodils were planted with ferns between the andromedas as well as in the spaces when the junipers eventually died.

The asters eventually died, too. I planted hyacinths, crocus and glory-of-the-snow and lilies. A friend gave me some goldenrod and snowdrops. A charity mailed me a packet of Shasta daisy seeds, most of which have sprouted. These are all behind deer fencing.

Fencing protecting yews. Behind them are the hostas.
(Margo D. Beller)

From an annual plant fair I bought butterfly bush, butterfly weed and hellebore. After several attempts to grow black-eyed susans failed I succeeded with purple coneflowers. I found columbine that had produced seedheads in a vacant lot about to be built over. These seeds have produced daughter plants everywhere I've spread them and beyond. I did not, to my regret, rescue a peony so I bought one that has flowered beautifully each spring. 

I bought a hydrangea bush to remind me of my parents' garden, but between the deer trying to eat it and the chipmunks tunneling underneath it didn't last. 

I planted joe-pye weed that grew 10-feet tall and threatened to overwhelm the bay window plot so I had to move them. They did ok after the move but they are now gone. The ornamental grasses I planted did much better than the Scotch brooms and lavenders I tried in the backyard.

Joe-pye in the wild. My experiment with them did
not turn out as well. (Margo D. Beller)

When a friend was breaking up her garden she begged me to take some of her plants, so I took irises, lily of the valley, astilbe, perennial geranium, fringed bleeding heart, yarrow, bishop's weed, monarda, vinca and several hostas. These plants have since been moved several times or have died, either because they reached their mortal limits or because they became so invasive I had to pull them out. Some of those that died I replaced with the same type of plant. 

In the case of the hostas I tried to get rid of as many as possible after the time deer ripped through the netting and nearly destroyed the potted plants, which I'd foolishly put in front. I now have two hostas hidden behind other plants. The others I gave away. 

And, of course, there are always weeds.

For my fencing I started with heavy metal poles I could never get fully in the ground. Then I discovered thin metal poles coated in green plastic that had no hooks. These don't last as long but I can hammer them into the ground. I developed a way of attaching the netting with green plastic garden ties, looping the top of the netting around the top of the poles. I also moved the low fence, putting it around my compost pile.

May Sarton wrote about her garden in her journals. She had vast drifts of flowers at her place in York, Maine. I don't remember her complaining about deer or about overdevelopment or climate change making the Earth too hot and changing when those flowers bloomed and when bees, birds and other pollenators would be stopping by to feed. 

Perennial geranium I bought and potted, and a hosta I kept that is not
yet hidden by the yew. (Margo D. Beller) 

But all that is happening now. With so-called development wiping out natural areas for residential and commercial lots the increasing deer populations gather and eat in small garden plots and suburban yards because there are no woods anymore (or predators that have been wiped out, or fear of being shot where people are now living).  

Meanwhile, the planet is getting hotter and plants are blooming before insects and birds can pollenate them. In years of massive insect populations the leaves of many plants are turned into lace. In other years, like this one, there has been so much rain my dogwood bloomed and the red spider mites were kept away from the flowers. Our recent heatwaves have been punctuated with massive downpours turning the street into a river and our driveway into a tributary.

The perennials have been growing in my garden long enough to be used to the conditions and can take care of themselves, which is fine for me. Annuals don't do nearly as well so next year's garden won't have them. If climate change makes my garden evolve into a desert or a floodplain, so be it. The garden (and I) will deal with it.

Chipmunks and Squirrels and Deer (Oh, No!)

I want to talk about some of my neighbors, Not the two-legged ones I'd rather ignore. No, I mean the four-legged ones that make gardening even more of a challenge than it needs to be.

But first, a house wren update. Since my last post, no sooner had the one house wren chick fledged but the adult male - at least I think it is the same male - started singing up a storm all over the yard. It was once again setting his territory for his next brood - house wrens have two each year, tho' I haven't always seen two broods in my yard. He is also "fighting" in song another house wren male that has been singing from a yard across the street recently. I have seen the wren in my yard chase off other birds getting too close to the nest box including house sparrows, jays, catbirds, Carolina wrens and that neighboring house wren.

The male wren on the dogwood branch, between
couplings. (Margo D. Beller)

In the midst of his singing he found a mate - the same as before? - and the female has set about making the box her own, clearing out some stuff and replacing it with some twigs and grasses to line the nest for her eggs when they come. There has been frequent coupling in the dogwood tree so there are no eggs at the moment. 

Now back to the neighbors.

My main problem with chipmunks is they dig, and they are small enough to get under or around my deer fencing. So I find deep holes dug around my plants, usually just after I plant them in the ground or in a pot. If I catch the damage in time I can put the plant back in and save it but that doesn't always happen. I discovered one chipmunk continuously dug up a canna I kept putting back in - when I figured out it wanted a spot for a tunnel hidden by the peony I moved the canna. Another time I came out the front door and a chipmunk jumped OUT of the cage I had put around my pepper and basil plants and a couple of annuals to protect them from the digging. So much for that brilliant idea.

The cage and all but one potted plant (a zinnia) are now stowed inside, either on the enclosed porch or in my sunny front room. (The pepper plant has a nice-sized fruit growing on it and I don't want it seized by the rodent.) Now I am thinking that next year I won't have many pots of plants outside.

Why do chipmunks dig? Maybe to create tunnels for transportation for themselves and their young or to look for acorns they may have planted in these or similar pots last year or to put new acorns in for the winter. Whatever the reason, they create havoc in my garden.

Squirrel in apple tree, caught in the act.
(Margo D. Beller)

Squirrels are too big to follow the chipmunks behind the netting and don't want to get caught in an area they can't escape. But they do climb. They climb into the dogwood to look at the nest box (and are chased away by the male wren). Thanks to the fur coat squirrels always wear they get very hot and very thirsty. Over the past few years squirrels have managed to break or damage water containers I hang in the pear tree by acrobatically grabbing the container with front paws while hanging onto the tree with rear paws. That's when they pull the container down.

One of the water containers squirrels have
damaged over the years.
(Margo D. Beller)

They also really, really like apples.

The old apple tree has been showing signs of stress in recent years, ever since I last had it pruned. This year it produced a lot of blossoms, to my surprise, and that means a lot of apples. The tree dropped many apples on its own early on, and the recent strong winds have blown down more. However, usually it is the squirrels that let me know when the apples are ripe. The climbing begins and I must once again try to get as many apples as I can for myself before the squirrels, which are very sloppy eaters. In this current hot and humid weather they have been particularly active, tho' not as bad as the time I came outside and six squirrels jumped out of the tree. Yet.

If I don't pick up what the squirrels drop the deer get them and leave a mess of their own. I throw chewed apples into the corner of the yard near my compost pile.

From 2018. The apple is now showing signs of stress but
it still produces fruit for me ... and the squirrels.
(Margo D. Beller)

I am sure those apples are feeding that fawn that found its way behind my deer fencing. The other week fawn and doe were passing through my backyard and when I came out the fawn took off, running in circles until its mother led it across the street. Did I give it PTSD? Good. It is because of the deer I must struggle under and over and even around the deer fencing around my garden plots.  

These are the most common critters, although this yard has seen the occasional coyote, bear and, too often, cats that must be some neighbors' pets because they look too neat to be feral. I can almost forgive the trouble animals cause me because they are doing what they do in order to survive. The two-legged ones are another matter.

A Not-So-Quiet Time in the Yard

Now that it is June there is very little birdsong at dawn. Birds have already set their territories and picked a mate. It is the time to build a nest, lay some eggs and wait for the eggs to hatch. Then the brooding and feeding begins.

The house wrens using the box I hung in the dogwood tree are busy feeding their young. It has been interesting to watch from my enclosed porch. Both Mom and Dad fly to the box with an insect in their bills but feed the young differently. Dad stays outside the box and feeds whichever chick has pushed its way to the opening, then he flies off for more food. Mom more often goes inside the box, perhaps to feed a chick (she also removes poop to keep the box clean). 

Papa Wren on the feeder pole (right) within sight of the nest.
(Margo D. Beller)

Now that I have stopped hanging feeders for the summer Dad uses the poles to watch the nest or to survey the yard below to grab an insect for his young, He frequently sings his song softly as if to let his mate and their chicks know he is on the case.

There are times Mom comes to the box and sits inside for a long time, which makes me wonder if there are only two chicks, which would be a smaller than usual brood. If there were three growing chicks they would take up a lot more room. Or maybe Mom is just taking a break. I can only guess from where I'm sitting.

Wrens are not the only birds feeding young, of course. While the chicks are small the parents are flying around seeking food. I don't go looking for nests but when a female bird zips to a spot and disappears, such as the female Baltimore oriole that flew past my binoculars as I looked at her mate, the nest becomes obvious. In this case she disappeared into a pouch nest hanging over the road, practically over my head. The pouch hung among the leaves on a thin branch and would be invisible to someone just walking along.

They look so small and cute, until they get behind
your deer fencing. (From 2019; Margo D. Beller)

Which is the intent. Life is dangerous for birds at all times anyway. For baby birds it is even more dire because there are many predators - avian and mammalian - that eat them. Once the young are encouraged by their parents to leave the nest they follow the adults and loudly beg for food. That makes them more obvious and that much more vulnerable.

The wrens in my yard are using a structure I put up for them, but house wrens get their name because they will build a nest in just about anything including places where you wouldn't expect a wren would want to nest, such as a flower pot.

They take advantage of human structures. So, I learned once again, do the deer.

The fawn was hiding behind this cage. It had
protection on three sides and an overhang to keep
it dry from the rain. Unfortunately, I opened the front door, 
blocking the escape route. (Margo D. Beller)

At this time of year the does that gave birth in late May are also caring for young. I have detailed in the past the times I have found fawns on my front or back lawns where they were placed by their mothers to keep them away from predators. I've found fawns in some strange places, usually in my back yard, but in recent years I hadn't seen any.

Until this week.

A couple of afternoons ago we had a heavy rain that lasted all of two minutes. But because it was heavy I went outside to check on my plants. No problems in the back, where years ago I put an old hose into an opening to block any doe from thinking about putting a fawn behind the yew plants, as one did the previous year.

How I think I solved the problem of deer getting
behind the back plot in 2021. So far it
has worked. (Margo D. Beller)

I opened my front door and the storm door. That's when I saw the spotted fawn that was curled up behind the cage where I put annuals to protect them from chipmunk digging and deer snacking. 

Before I could go back inside the fawn jumped up and pushed itself behind the deer fencing. Then it ran away from me. It could not escape - remember, this netting was put up to keep deer out - and bleated for its mother. The rain started again and I ran inside for my coat. The fawn continued pushing against the netting.

Some of the plants and their supports that got upended when the 
fawn tried to get away. The lilies later bloomed just fine.
(Margo D. Beller)

It kept moving and calling for its mother as I ran to the other end of the fence to pull up some of the posts so it could escape. However, it found its own way out, pushing up the garden staples securing the netting to the ground. It ran to my yew hedge, heaving in fear. Then it took off down the yard before turning and running at full deer speed behind a house across the street, no doubt to where its waiting mother called to it. 

I set about repairing the damage - which was minimal, thankfully - and reset the fence posts and garden staples, thanking the fawn for inadvertently showing me weaknesses that it would, as an adult, use to destroy some of the very plants it rushed by, such as the Stargazer lilies and the Shasta daisies. I banged more poles into the area where the deer got in and later blocked the area where the fawn had curled up with a large pot.

As I worked one of the house wrens scolded me from nearby.  "Oh go take care of your nest and let me take care of mine," I told it.

Oh, Deer!

My brother-in-law lives in a rural part of New Hampshire. When we visit in winter his feeders draw a number of birds. Winter can be harsh up there, climate change notwithstanding. Sometimes the feeders draw something unusual - common redpolls or a flock of wild turkeys, for instance.

(Margo D. Beller)

Recently he announced the feeders had drawn something really unusual, at least to his yard - deer.

Welcome to my world.

In the past, hunting or natural predators have been very efficient in keeping down the deer population in his area. But now there are more homes being built on his road, and those neat parcels of lawn are very enticing for deer. Hunting season is apparently no longer enough up there.

All this, including hunting in restricted areas, has been going on in my suburban New Jersey neighborhood for decades. I've learned the hard way what happens when you grow plants that are not only attractive to you but to wildlife.

First it was the rabbits that nibbled at the asters. I put in a small fence that discouraged them. But it did nothing to stop the deer eating the asters or the euonymous shrubs or the lilies or the sedums. So I put in metal fence posts and hung deer netting. The fence posts would not stay in the ground so eventually they were replaced by thin, plastic-coated metal posts I could more easily hammer in, and on which I tied the netting. 

Protecting the evergreen euonymous
(Margo D. Beller)

Then I learned a hungry deer that was desperate enough would grab the netting with its teeth or use the strength of its hoof to rip a big hole. At first I used burlap to cover the netting on two front plots in winter, but the flapping and tearing caused by the wind had a neighbor complaining. Now I double a piece of netting to make it that much thicker, and I cut back the evergreen euonymous plants as winter approaches to make them harder to reach.

Like my brother-in-law I learned a deer will knock feeders around and eat the spilled seeds. One morning I saw an 8-point buck eating from the house feeder. Not wanting to be gored I banged on the enclosed porch's glass. It looked at me and ambled away. Another reason to take in the feeders at night. (I'd been taking the feeders in at night ever since the first bear attack, except when we've had heavy snow.) 

I learned a fawn could get behind the netting from around the corner if I didn't block the space with folded metal fencing. I learned there are plants deer are less likely to eat, though a hungry deer will always take a bite out of something (such as a canna leaf or a hot pepper) and then learn not to eat it again. (Of course, if enough deer take a bite, you have a dead plant.) 

(Margo D. Beller)

If I had known about deer over 25 years ago when I put in the plants what I have since learned, my garden would look very different. No azaleas and more daffodils, for instance. More ornamental grasses, fewer sedum. 

With Spring coming on I am already dreading the annual hassle of pulling the netting down so I can position myself as close as possible and then lean over the net to remove leaves or stray locust pods and get the beds ready for the season. Every few years I have to pull out the posts and replace the netting. (Last year I did this with the two front beds in a marathon session. Once netting comes down it can't be left that way because of the deer threat.)

Backyard burlap protecting yew plants I learned are
particularly attractive to deer. The backyard
neighbor doesn't seem bothered by the burlap. (Margo D. Beller)

Every year I say to hell with it, I'm taking down all this damned fencing. Then a herd of two to eight deer passes through and I remember why I struggle with this damned fencing.

My brother-in-law doesn't have to worry about this in his rural Eden, at least not yet. For now he'll be taking the feeders in at night, until the bears come out of their dens and he stops feeding the birds for the season anyway. 

Backyard Nursery

The day after my last post, the house wrens fledged. I was working in my office and through the open window I heard one of the wren parents doing its scolding call from the tall arborvitae by the front door. I went downstairs, out the back door and around the house. I could see the bird moving around as it called. When I headed to the back door I could hear the young calling from the box or the shrubs across the way. 

Now-empty nest (Margo D. Beller)

I'm no expert but I am thinking the parent was telling the young if they wanted to get fed they'd better fly out and follow him or her. And they did. Later that day I went out the front door and heard the wrens in the border hedge between my neighbor and me. One day after that, silence. They had left.

As usual, I was saddened by the silence. However, the adult house wrens had done what they were supposed to do: find a mate, find a nest site, build the nest, mate, lay eggs, sit on eggs and then feed the young when they hatch. When the young get big enough, encourage them to start flying and hunting on their own. Then, when the time is right, leave for the winter grounds until next spring.

My yard is not completely silent, however, There have been noisy bird families flying around for weeks now.

Robins, Suffolk County, NY (Margo D. Beller)

The young robins are as big as their parents, their red breasts speckled for camouflage. They are hunting insects in the lawns, every so often running over to Mom or Dad for a quick worm. Families of grackles and starlings dig into the lawn, too. Raucous titmice young are calling as they follow their parents in the treetops. Families of blue jays are scouring the apple tree for insects, a little harder for them with the apples gone. A family of cardinals, the young looking like their mother for now but with black bills, hunt in the trees, as does a family of flickers.

In the hot July air, male goldfinches are doing their swooping flight to impress the females. Goldfinches nest later than other birds because they depend on seeds to feed their young, and it takes a while for plants to go to seed.

Fawn on the lawn, from several years ago.
(Margo D. Beller)

And there are other young. I did not have a repeat of what happened in 2013 but the other day a doe ran through my yard followed by her two speckled fawns prancing like colts. They are lovely to watch, as long as they are leaving my property so they can't nibble on my plants. (A doe with young is a lot more skittish and ready to run if I confront them than when a doe is alone.)

And to bring the story full circle, a few days ago I was on the porch when a house wren appeared at the water dish, dipped its bill and then flew to the dogwood tree. As I watched it checked out the nest box inside and out. Then it flew to a shrub.

You'll recall it was a house wren that came to the water dish back in June that spurred me to put up the nest box, and then I waited for what seemed like years for a pair to come and use it, the pair whose young just fledged.

Was this recent bird one of those wrens coming back to the old homestead? One of the young? Or was it a completely different wren looking for a suitable place to start a second brood? I don't know. It has not returned but the box will remain out for the rest of the summer, just in case.  

A Delicate Dance Around the Apple Tree

I was so hoping the cool, wet spring would keep the squirrels hydrated so they would not need to climb into my apple tree and start eating. But no. The first spate of sunny, warm days and they were in there, even though to me the fruit was not large or ripe enough. But to squirrels, apples of any type are a temptation at this time of year.

The first of this year's apples (Margo D. Beller)

And so over the last few days I have been outside either picking up usable dropped apples or picking what I can reach. Most of these apples are not ripe but when I cook them with enough sugar they will taste just fine as apple sauce.

Most apples can be picked in the fall. This tree has always bloomed in the late spring. When I first realized these apples were sweet and thus edible, they would ripen red. I took one to the manager of a farm market near me and he said it was a type of Macintosh. All I knew was of the five apple trees planted by the previous owner of my home, this one had usable apples. (The other four trees have since been removed.)

The problem is the house wren box, which prompts me to do a delicate dance when it comes to gathering the apples. I hang it in the apple tree. When I get too close to the box, one of the wrens starts to fuss, either from high in the tree or from a nearby bush. On occasion both adults scold because I am too close. I had hoped that by standing under the tree when the apples were first appearing the birds would get used to my presence. Perhaps it has worked, as long as I stay away from the box.

Apple tree with this year's crop and house wren box (Margo D. Beller)

In past years, the squirrels didn't start hitting the tree in droves (the record is six at once) until late June or even early July. Some years the tree provides a meager harvest while others there is too much. This year, based on the number of blossoms that bloomed for over a week this spring, looks like it is in-between.

Under the late June-early July scenario, the house wrens were usually done with their brood and they, and young, would have left for larger quarters (such as a nearby hedge) before separating and flying south. But this year with all the drama over whether there would even be a wren family, the nesting started later than usual.

So thanks in part to the increasing global warming affecting even my part of the U.S., my yard has a bad combination of late nesting and early apple picking.

There are two other figures in this dance: deer and birds. Squirrels are sloppy eaters, I've found. If they take an apple and run off to a safe location, I'm ok with that. But when they eat in the tree there is a likelihood part of that apple will end up on the ground. That is particularly true when I go out to shoo them away. Unless I pick up those apple parts and either throw them in a corner of the yard or put them in the garbage, the deer will stop by and eat this free food. I know this because they leave lots of calling cards.

As for the birds, some, like American crows, like to eat fruit but in my experience most of the time a bird will peck into the apple to draw insects to it or to get at any insects already inside. I don't spray the tree, so when I do use the apples I have to cut off a goodly amount of them to make sure that, at minimum, I'm not mixing a worm into my apple sauce.

Feeding the young in 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

So once again I will be stiffly going outside early in the morning and then perhaps again at dusk to retrieve any fallen apples. Many are the times I've picked up a pail's worth of apples and maybe one-third of them have not been partially eaten or pecked. When the wren young have left the nest I will take out my long stick and start whacking the tree for the apples in the mid level while the squirrels go after the ones in the highest branches I can't reach. They can have those.

The good news is, this madness should be over in about 10 days and the cooking will begin sooner than that. In the meantime, I'll be trying to disturb the house wren family-in-the-making as little as possible.

The Further Adventures of a Suburban Backyard

The house wren sang incessantly starting at dawn. I did not mind the wake-up call. Considering I thought the nest box was abandoned, this is music to my ears.

Things happen so fast in my backyard that I must restrain myself from writing every day because I am sure to be proven wrong. Such is the case after last week's post when I needed to update on the fawns being led off the lawn by their mother. I am now sure the one that appeared under the apple tree after the doe had led off one of her twins was Fawn 1, the one that started to follow me thinking I was its mother. I didn't know where it had gotten to once I got on the porch. It must've remembered Mom's instructions to lie down under a tree surrounded by high grass and wait for her.

Wren nest box (Margo D. Beller)

Neither fawns nor doe have been seen since and MH was able to mow the grass over several days this week when the rains held off.

But there were other dramas in my backyard that literally changed by the day.

The late afternoon of Memorial Day - a sunny, clear and windless day - I came out to get the feeder and found the female cardinal on the ground, her head smashed from hitting the side of the screened porch. The flies were already doing their own feeding when I shoveled up the body and deposited it under a shrub on the other side of my flood wall, the usual place where I place any dead birds or animals I find. (They decompose very quickly.)

Cardinals mate for life, and it was sad to see the male cardinal coming to the feeder as usual and not seeing its mate. However, I was sure that would change and two days later I was not surprised to see an adult female started coming to the feeder with the male. What did surprise me, however, was the begging young that appeared on the floodwall: not a cowbird, as I'd thought, but a juvenile cardinal after all. Like the adult, this bird was brownish (to better blend in) and had a small crest and red tail but its bill was gray rather than red. That will change as the bird matures, as will its coloring if this is a male.

While it is easy to tell the red cardinal male from the browner female, the same can't be said about house wrens.

Female cardinal from another year (Margo D. Beller)

Last week, I was unsure if I was going to have to clear an abandoned nest from the box I hang every year in the apple tree. I had seen one individual that would softly "scold" and then fly into the box. I presumed that was a female. I wondered how she would survive as a single parent, especially if she was sitting on eggs. There had been a singing male at the box a week ago but he turned out to be a one-day wonder.

A few days later another male started singing and this one was more persistent. It sang all around the box, sat just outside the opening, even stuck its head in. It sang for most of the day and at one point I saw it and the female flying around the yard. The singing has continued and today (Sunday) I see twigs sticking through the opening of the box, a sign the nest has been enlarged. If there were dead eggs from her first mate, they've likely been removed.

All this activity has me wondering about many things.

How does a mother deer communicate with its young to tell it to stay in a particular area until she comes back?

How did the male cardinal advertise his availability to another adult female after losing his mate?

Why did the female house wren accept this particular male rather than the earlier one (presuming this wasn't the earlier one returning)?

Some things I can infer. Instinct plays a heavy role. The fawn that followed me saw me as a big creature like its mother. Once the real mother showed up, the fawn followed her off my property.

The female cardinal accepted the young cardinal even tho' it was not hers because instinct tells her to do so. Besides, this pair might have their own brood once the youngster can feed itself.

Blossoming apple tree with nest box (Margo D. Beller)

The female house wren knew it would need a partner, even one that only lasts one season, if she was to lay eggs, brood them into hatching and raise them so they could fledge and take care of themselves. Unlike other birds where the male's responsibility ends at conception, male house wrens help feed and protect the young, usually three or four to a brood. So she needed a new mate.

Now I await the sound of peeping wren young. I hope the birds are hatched, brooded and fledged before the annual summer race between me and the squirrels to harvest the apples now quickly growing around the nest box.

The Secret Life of a Suburban Backyard (with two updates)

Who knows what goes on behind the picket fence?

The typical suburban backyard is not very interesting. The large lawn is mowed down to a small height. The weeds are either dug up by hand or bombed with chemicals. The shrubs are not particularly showy and designed to require little in the way of maintenance. Those with a fenced-in yard put the dogs out in good weather. Humans are only out there when they use the grill or perhaps play with toddlers.

Fawn 1, May 25, 2019 (Margo D. Beller)

Perhaps I am stereotyping my neighborhood but that's how my neighbors' properties appear to me. I doubt any of them know what the birds are doing in their trees and shrubs or the critters on their lawn unless they notice browsing damage or the waste left behind.

This morning I was distracted by three wildlife dramas I noticed taking place in my suburban backyard. One was quickly resolved, one is ongoing, one I don't know how it will end.

Drama One: Twin Problems

The first involved deer, this time twin fawns about a day old.

While most people think of Memorial Day as the unofficial start of summer, I think of the period as birthing time for does. I have found day-old fawns on the property every few years and I am usually on MH to get out and mow the grass before it can be turned into a nursery. MH likes to leave the grass longish so it will protect itself from the sun's heat.

But since I was the one who mowed the backyard only a week ago, I can't blame him for what happened when the rains made the grass grow back quicker than I expected.

I put out a bird feeder this morning and noticed grass matted down from a deer that used it as a B&B. I walked to the back door and listened to the many birds - robins, catbirds, cardinals, a few types of warblers. My reverie was broken when a big doe bounded across the yard into my ornamental grass garden, knocking over plants. I noticed the size and deep in my brain must've remembered another big doe. I shooed her away.

About 15 minutes later, I saw two fawns under the dogwood. I remembered the other big doe - the one who came to nurse a crying fawn that had been left in our long grass several years ago.

Fawn 2 (Margo D. Beller)

I don't know why but I went out to get the fawns to move off my lawn to someplace less open to the street. On their spindly legs they slowly went to a border shrub and hunkered down. I went inside. Later I went out and there they were again. One soon bedded down under the dogwood, invisible unless you knew where to look. The other, however, was far more active and started heading toward the street.

I have protection against grown deer and smaller pests like squirrels and rabbits around some of my garden beds but I didn't want this little thing to get caught so I went out to shoo it back to its sibling. To my shock it started after me thinking I was its mother! I ran back to the porch.

Later, I went into the front yard to make sure this fawn hadn't gotten caught in the netting. There was Mom looking at me from the lawn across the street. I was not surprised to see her about 15 minutes later leading off a fawn, preumably the one that had been under the dogwood. Since I didn't see the other one anywhere, I am hoping she took care of that one, too.

Drama over, at least for now. Soon the fawns will grow and, like any curious child, will come to explore. Any plants not covered with netting will be sampled, including supposedly "deer-resistant" plants. I've had many bites taken out of such plants and that's why this year what I can move are behind some kind of barrier.

(Update: I later found one of the fawns under my apple tree. I left it alone and went out for the afternoon with MH. I don't know which fawn it was but it was gone when we returned. I know the whole family will return after dark and bed down in the lawn until we can mow it.)

Drama Two: An Alien

For some time now I've been hearing the sound of begging from a forsythia shrub. Today, while repairing damage done by the big doe mentioned above, I saw the cardinal pair at my flood wall followed by a begging bird nearly as big as they.

Cowbirds struck again.

I don't like cowbirds, as I've often stated, because the female lays her egg in another bird's nest. This egg frequently hatches first and then destroys the competition. So the parents feed this alien until it gets big enough to feed itself, at which point it somehow knows to find other cowbirds and start the cycle all over again.

Male cardinal (Margo D. Beller)

By now I usually take in the feeders but this year I've been slowly decreasing the number, in part to allow the parent cardinals to find seed to give them the strength to find insects to feed this voracious youngster (cowbirds don't eat seeds). First the suet was removed and put into the freezer. Then the caged tube feeder came in. Now the house feeder remains. Few birds are coming to it when insects are so plentiful.

This cardinal pair, however, seems so dependent on the seed I provide the male is frequently on the pole as I open the back door to put out the feeder. The male feeds on one side, the female the other. Then the chick starts begging and one has to fly off to attend to it. There are no babysitters to help out this family.

Drama Three: Evict or No? 

We recently returned from a week away to find a strange situation at the house wren box I put out every year. The male, which had been singing up a storm in late April into early May, appeared to be gone. A bird I presumed to be the female would make a soft scolding call from a nearby hedge, fly to the box, go in and stay put for a long while. I wondered, is there a nest going and are the eggs hatched or did something happen?

The other day I saw the bird leave the box for a bush. I didn't see it come back.

Today, for the first time in a long time, a male house wren was singing around the backyard. It flew into the apple tree and around the box. It came to the opening and looked but did not go in. Significantly, nothing flew out to chase him off and there was no cheeping. The male wren flew to several places in the yard, singing. It came back to the box and again looked in without entering. Now, it is gone and I don't know if it will return.

My quandary - Should I empty the box so another wren pair can start over? Or, as MH said as I fussed about the twin fawns, will nature take its course?

House wren from another year (Margo D. Beller)

Several years ago, a chickadee took over the box before a house wren could find it. I came up my driveway one evening to find what looked like a squirrel tail streaming from the box opening. It was the chickadee's nest of fur. It had been pulled out by a wren, which soon filled the box with its stick nest.

But if there is already a stick nest in the box (filled with dead eggs or, worse, a dead bird), the wren isn't going to go to the trouble of pulling it out and starting over. It will just find another sheltered place. If I want another pair to use the box this year, I'll have to empty it.

For now, I'm leaving the box alone to see what happens. I'll let you know what develops next in this suburban wildlife drama.

(Update: I took in the feeder for the night and walked over to the box. An adult wren quickly flew out and scolded me. I apologized and went back into the house. So the box isn't empty, at least for today. But what will happen tomorrow?)