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)

Many Directions At Once

 ...[S]tarting a sentence in the middle, and then going to the beginning and the end of it at the same time... both directions at once.

--Liner note from the John Coltrane "lost" album "Both Directions At Once," recorded in 1963 but not released until 2018.

It is a warmish but quiet morning on the enclosed back porch, and I am catching up with the world after last week's heatwave kept me inside with the air conditioning for nearly a week, except for brief forays in the oppressive air to pick up apples dropped by the thirsty squirrels. I would hear birds but had no inclination to go looking for them until the day the heatwave ended, when it was wonderfully cool in the early morning and I could take a long walk.

Wren nest in what is now the diseased area
of the apple tree, back in 2020.
(Margo D. Beller)

This morning, however, I am sitting. In one direction I can see the house wren nest box. During the heatwave the male had been singing almost continually, and I wondered what had happened to its mate. I could not sit on the porch in the heat to watch for activity. 

Unlike the first wren brood, when it was unusually wet and cool during incubation, it must've been extremely hot in that little wooden box for this female. If there were eggs in there they wouldn't need her all the time to keep them warm. But when it turned cooler I did see her leaving the box to get food, then fly back inside for long periods of time.

As I watched today she flew out and soon returned holding a bright green insect, maybe a katydid. She took it inside. So I'm sure the eggs have hatched and she is now feeding small young that will grow bigger. 

What the hummingbird saw, which may be why it didn't stay.
(Margo D. Beller)

That's one direction I can look. If I turn around in my chair I can see the hummingbird feeder. When it turned cool I had put fresh sugar water in and hoped something would be interested.

A couple of days ago, as I was at the back door before going out to collect dropped apples, a hummingbird did suddenly appear. It briefly investigated the pink coral bell flowers, flew up to look at the red lid of the feeder but did not fly over the netting. Instead, it headed for the apple tree but a squirrel in a lower branch must've spooked it because it disappeared. I hope it returns.

Hummingbirds used to be a common occurrence in my yard, usually during July. Last year I saw no hummingbirds at the feeder but one could've come by. Same with the one I saw this week. Did it come by when I had taken the feeder inside? Did it come by when the liquid had spoiled? Was it put off by the netting that protects the plants in the shade? No clue.

Years ago a yellow-bellied sapsucker drilled these holes in
the apple tree. I didn't think they had anything to do with
the current rot. Now I'm not sure. (Margo D. Beller)

So now I'm watching for hummingbirds when I'm on the porch. That is good, because the apple tree is done putting out fruit and I will soon have to do something about its diseased limb.

There was a time, early in our occupancy of this house, when apple season was during July. Little by little apple season has been earlier and earlier. This year the tree started dropping small apples at the end of May, not long after flowering. Then one-third of the tree suddenly went black. As apples got bigger in the rest of the tree the squirrels started coming. I took my long pole out to knock down what apples I could reach. Despite one-third of the tree being dead I managed to get enough fruit for two pints of sauce and two apple cakes. 

The fruit I could not reach I left for the squirrels. Yesterday, June 28, I picked up the last little apples from the ground. Today, June 29, there were no squirrels in the tree and a chipmunk was rummaging around looking for what apple bits it could find. 

Chipmunk hunting apple pieces. (Margo D. Beller)

Apple season is over for this year and it isn't even July. If cutting off the diseased limb doesn't save the tree it could be the last apple season. We've lived in this house for over 30 years and the tree was there when we moved in. It was planted by a previous owner maybe a decade before that.

According to one website I found, the average lifespan of an apple tree is 25 to 50 years, depending on the type. Years ago I showed one of the apples to the manager of the farmstand I buy from and he thought it was a MacIntosh type, even though the tree blooms in the spring rather than fall. MacIntosh trees live 30-45 years.

Factors affecting its life include exposure to sunlight (check), competition with other trees (it stands alone) and moisture. Too little is bad and so is too much. Last year we were in a severe drought, which lasted until this spring, when we had too much rain. This is an old tree. As with the dogwood a few years ago, my hope is cutting away the dead stuff will allow the apple tree to live. But it may not.

Besides apples ripening sooner than before thanks to increasing global warming the insect population is surging earlier, too.

That's why another distraction from my chair is watching for fungal gnats on the porch. Last year the gnats started bothering me in August, at which point I brought my house plants inside and put the infested bird seed bag outside. This year they started in the spring, when it was cold and wet. Maybe they were seeking shelter and warmth because during the heatwave there were very few of them on the porch. (And I don't have house plants on the porch this year.) What I found inside during the heatwave I am sure I brought in after dealing with the apples. 

Instead of spraying the porch, as I did last year, I tried old-fashioned flypaper. 

Hanging from the ceiling. (Margo D. Beller)

I hung it on a wall near the screen door, because that is where I'd see a gnat early in the morning. But all I caught was a spider. I don't want to catch spiders. Spiders are useful insects with their webs. So I changed the location and have the sticky paper hanging from the ceiling. But unlike flies, attracted by the color yellow, gnats could care less. They seem to prefer the white walls of the porch, which is where I've continued to kill them. The one fly that got onto the porch got caught in a spider web. 

The flypaper is something else to look at when I'm not watching the wrens.  

Life and Dying in the Backyard

Every spring I am surprised by my plants coming back after the winter. This year is no exception despite temperatures that reached the 80s in February and the 30s in April, with very little snow but lots of rain. Although some plants did not get as tall or as showy as usual, they did flower. The same is true of the trees and the shrubs. Both the apple and the pear trees have flowered, despite being severely cut back early this year. Where there are flowers there will be fruit, albeit fruit too high for me to easily pick.

Dogwood flowers in 2016 (Margo D. Beller)

This post will focus on one particular tree.

I have lived in my house for over 25 years. In my suburban neighborhood "woods" means trees on the property border. Any trees planted in the front or back yards have been put in by the homeowner. Over the years I've had to cut down yard trees for various reasons. I have, however, planted two trees - the blue spruce we nicknamed Spruce Bringsgreen and a flowering dogwood.

I planted the dogwood because in the fall it is supposed to produce red berries for the birds. Since that tree was planted in 2007 I've learned berries are not guaranteed. Like the other flowering plants, it depends on the weather. Some years there would be lovely pink flowers on the dogwood. But that did not necessarily mean berries would follow. Some years yes, some years no. The fresh green leaves would go red in the fall. 

Dogwood berries, 2019. Note the discoloration
in the autumn leaves. (Margo D. Beller)

Since planting that tree I took it as a given that once established it would always be there. But like any other living thing, trees die. Sometimes they are killed by man, who cuts them down or pollutes the air. Sometimes they are killed by insects, as was the ash tree I had to cut down because of the emerald ash borer. Sometimes, however, they are killed by bacteria or fungus.

I don't remember when during the winter I first began to notice one branch was missing some of its bark but I did eventually notice, especially when more bare patches began to appear. I became alarmed when the apple and pear trees, the viburnum, the forsythia and the lilacs started leafing out and the dogwood remained bare. I thought the tree was dead.

My first indication something was wrong.
(Margo D. Beller)

I was going to write about it here. I even had a name for my post - Dead as a Dogwood.

But reports of the dogwood's demise were premature - after a recent heavy rain it started to leaf out.

Not everywhere, however. The part of the tree where the bark has come off remains bare, as are a few of the lower branches. 

I did some research into dogwood diseases, and to my horror discovered there are quite a few. The one that appears the closest to what is happening with this tree has the awful name of "crown canker."

Hoping for the best, I wrapped the lower part of the tree to prevent the bark that was just starting to flake from getting worse. I used my lopper on some of the lower branches and will have to use a saw or chainsaw on other parts. Because the tree went straight to leafing there will be no flowers. The leaves are small and I doubt there will be fruit. I don't even know if the tree will be alive next year.

(Margo D. Beller)

As I looked at some of the pictures I've taken of this tree over the years I realize the signs were there: discoloring in the leaves, the irregular production of fruit. It was not until the bark started falling off that I realized this tree is sick. Should I have used the sprinkler last year instead of letting the grass go brown and deprive the tree roots of water during the summer drought? Should I have added more mulch to what I had already put down at the base of the tree? 

Dogwood leaves, 2023 (Margo D. Beller)

I don't know. This year I'll use the sprinkler more and I'll use my saw on the dead branches. The tree may be disfigured but I hope it will recover. Or it may die. Living things die, even trees.

In the meantime, as I have for the past two years, I have put up the house wren nest box on one of the living dogwood branches. I heard a wren singing the other morning as I put out the feeders. The bird investigated the box, then flew to another yard. Will it be back? That, too, is unknown.

Home, Sweet Nest

There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. 
-- Henry David Thoreau

I recently finished re-reading Bob Levy's 2006 book about Central Park, its birds and the people who look for them, "Club George." George was the name given to a male red-winged blackbird that was not shy about taking food from human hands. 

Robin nest placed on stairs to an observation deck, 2019
(Margo D. Beller)

Rather than focusing on the birds migrating through this urban oasis in the spring, which is what I do when I visit Central Park, he is more interested in the birds that stay in the park to nest and raise young during the summer. Among the nests he visited on his daily rounds were those of a pair of cardinals, cedar waxwings and several green herons besides monitoring "George's Pond" for signs of young redwings in a number of nests in the tall reeds. His greatest frustration was in not being able to see the chicks. Until the young became big enough to stand up (in the case of the herons) or stick their heads up to be fed (in the case of the other birds), he could not see what was happening in the nest.

I know that frustration.

Somewhere in one of my hedges was the nest where the cardinal pair raised their one surviving chick this year. I know that somewhere in another hedge on the other side of the yard are possibly two catbird nests. 

There are people who like to find active nests and take their pictures. I don't go looking for the nests, although sometimes I find them when the parent bird catches my attention and leads me there. The smallest such nest was the hummingbird nest in a small branch hanging over a brook a few years ago. The largest was the red-tailed hawk nest I found in a tree over a backstreet in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, the year I worked in the area.

Red-tailed hawk on nest, 2012 (Margo D. Beller)

Closer to home, watering one of my bushes at the side of the house, a catbird flew up. Something made me look in back and there on a branch was its mate, steadfastly sitting on her eggs in a woven nest. For the rest of the summer I watered there only when I had to until the birds fledged. That was the last year a nest was built in that particular area.

Robins have the habit of building a lot of "dummy" nests to fool potential predators. I watched a robin build one at the top of the pear tree. The robin sat in it for so long I thought it was a real nest. But one day the bird left and the nest later blew down. There were no eggs in it. Another year a robin put another nest in my spruce tree. I have found robin nests in really strange places, such as on stairs leading to an observation deck and at eye level in trees off heavily traveled foot paths. Recently I went on a hike and a couple of shrieking robins alerted me to their nest in which were two young. When I next checked the area 12 days later, the nest was there but the birds were gone. According to Cornell's Ornithology Lab, the nesting period for robins is 13 days.

Much-photographed wren nest box (Margo D. Beller)

The nest I know best is the wooden box I put into the apple tree every year for the house wrens. However, even though I know where the nest will be, I know little of what goes on inside. Not knowing if there was a viable nest for the longest time was particularly vexing for me this year, although now, judging by the birds' behavior, there has to be a brood. 

I have thought about getting one of those tiny cameras that would fit in the box. Birdcams have become as ubiquitous as the surveillance cameras recording we humans on the streets of major cities or the selfies I see people taking everywhere. Everyone wants to see a picture or, better yet, a video of young birds squished together sleeping or fighting each other to get the regurgitated food from their arriving parent's mouth or, in the case of raptors, whole birds, mammals or fish for them to rip apart. Gross but fascinating.

Viral house wrens? Perhaps next year. For now, I continue to listen for peeping young inside the box. 

Of Apples and Wren, Again

Early June. It is cloudy, cool and breezy on the porch this morning, a relief after the heat and humidity of yesterday when I was walking in a fog all day and had trouble breathing. Today, though damp, the coolness gives me more energy.

Not MH, however. It is the season of the long grass and it has been too wet for him to use the mower. He is waiting for the grass dry out a bit but in doing so we have the beginnings of a deer meadow. I am watching for deer dropping any newborn fawns in the grass, or eating the foliage of the shrubs that have enjoyed all the rain and humidity. The trees have leafed out and everything in the backyard looks very lush.

The porch window is open and the apple tree says, "Come see me. I am fertile and magnificent."

Apples in the making, 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

And she is! All the flowers of a few weeks ago have disappeared and in their place are tiny, growing apples, hard to see among all the leaves until you get close enough. The squirrels are already going into the tree, as they do every year, looking for an apple to provide moisture on a hot day, even a hard, small one. They go into the tree and, in the process of moving around, knock small apples to the ground for the deer to find. I don't feel like searching in the long grass. It will be enough of a struggle to pick up larger, partially eaten fruit and toss them into the corner for the deer while picking what apples I can for this year's sauce and pies.

This year's house wren sees me near the nest box that hangs from this tree and starts singing insistently from a nearby oak. The song is his territorial song and must also be a warning because soon his mate flies nearby. The singer is a plain little bird, brown except for the tan of his breast and belly. He looks strangely green in this cloudy morning light when surrounded by all the leaves. He sees me looking at him and flies to a higher branch of another tree. I wonder if there are eggs in the box and, if so, when they will hatch.

I take another step closer to the tree and the wren flies nearby to scold. "Go inside. You're disrupting things," the tree tells me. I step away and sit inside. I watch the wren fly to several places around the yard to sing or find food.

Apple tree with wren box at the bottom, summer 2018 (Margo D. Beller) 

Aside from the cardinal pair that still comes to the empty feeder pole looking for seed, the call of a distant chipping sparrow and the chattering catbird flying from its nest in one bush to another bush across the yard and back, the house wrens are once again the extent of my summer birding unless I see something in passing during my travels. At this time of year, I must take advantage of these cooler days to keep the ground ivy and other weeds in check and have no time or, on hot days, energy for birds. On hot, muggy days, I stay where it is cool. The birds can't do that. They must hatch and feed their young and teach them how to fend for themselves and maybe even have a second brood with another mate before the days shorten and instinct tells them it's time to fly south.

Meanwhile, also as usual, the apples will get bigger on the tree. This tree is rather odd, putting out a Mcintosh-like apple in June and July rather than in the fall, as other apple trees do. But the fruit is sweet, and that is why I will be racing the squirrels (and perhaps bear?) to pick as many as I can for approximately three weeks once the apples start to ripen.

I am hoping the house wrens will have had their brood and flown off before the squirrels and I disturb the tree too much with our picking. It works out that way each year and, barring a catastrophe I can't foresee, should happen yet again.

Chatting With the Apple Tree

Apple tree (Margo D. Beller)

We have passed the point on the calendar marked "First day of summer" although from a meteorological standpoint, summer began on June 1. There are two hummingbirds at the feeder. I know this because frequently they show up at the same time and one chases the other off. Because they look alike, I can't tell which is the Alpha and which is the Beta. However, one does tend to squeek when it flies off or is disturbed. I heard it from the tree this morning as I was picking apples.

Most apples grow in late summer into autumn. I have one tree that blooms in late April or early May and puts out fruit a few weeks later. Some years, such as last year, drought conditions prompted few flowers and thus fewer apples for me to pick. This year, with all the rain, there was an overabundance of flowers and now you can see the apples growing.

Last year I brought one to a farmer I know and he identified the apple as a sort of Mcintosh, although these are usually ready to be picked in the fall, too. But my apples are usually ready in late June into July. I know this when I see squirrels climbing up, grabbing one and running off with it.

Thus begins an annual routine. I go out with a bucket, pick up whatever the squirrel has dropped and then pick whatever apples look big enough to cook - ideally I'd like them redder but I am in a race against time here - before the deer can come and eat them. The other morning I had just done that when a big doe arrived and started browsing. I chased her off but she did not go willingly.

House wren in apple tree. (Margo D. Beller)

This is suburban life now. At one time deer were afraid of people. No longer.

I do this picking (or picking up) twice a day, in the early morning and at dusk. But judging by all the deer excrement under the tree, I can't get everything.

When we bought the house over 20 years ago, it had been standing at that point 30 years or so. The previous owner must've fancied himself a gardener because he put in five apple trees, a pear and a cherry. He also built up a small, terraced garden with railroad ties. However, he stopped taking care of it, then moved out ahead of a divorce and the ties rotted. Chipmunks nested beneath it. When we had work done on the house and surrounding property, the ties were removed.

However, the trees stayed. The cherry eventually rotted and I had three of the five apples taken down because the fruit was not usable to me but made a big mess in the yard thanks to the squirrels and deer. The fourth, a small tree and the same type as the one that remains, was killed by too much rubbing of antlers against it by young bucks.

Where one tree was removed is now a garden of ornamental grasses and other plants deer tend to leave alone. Where two others were are now planted a dogwood tree and my friend Spruce Bringsgreen. But I kept the last tree because the apples make good sauce or pies. It holds up the house wren box, where the adults are now shuttling back and forth to feed peeping young. It provides some shade. It is a place for birds to perch such as the hummingbird. During the flowering season, I discovered 14 cedar waxwings going after the bugs, or perhaps eating the petals.

But those apples do draw the squirrels and the deer.

Recently I sat outside on my patio, admiring this tree with its growing fruits. I had it trimmed a few years ago but now it is bushier than ever.

I am an old tree, she told me. I have to do much to protect myself and to protect my young. When I have too many, as this year, I must abort many of them while they are still small and hard. It can't be helped. I have to be able to bear more fruit next year and beyond. As you can see I have a gall on my trunk and an opening big enough for a chipmunk to sit in, but I keep going.

I had noticed all those little apples underfoot, I said. I guess a lot of trees do that. I notice the elm over there has dropped a lot of green seeds. I hope the squirrels and chipmunks will get to them later, when they have to be stored for winter.

I do not mind the birds in my upper branches, she continued. I do not mind the nest box you hang on my lower branch so you can watch the birds. I did not mind the yellow-bellied sapsucker that drilled little holes in a ring around my trunk for the sap last spring, the one you kept chasing off. It was trying to survive, too. I have withstood all that. 

I survived a hurricane, the one called Sandy. I have stood in deep snow and in fog and in heavy rain and in such heat that my leaves have turned brown and fallen before their time. I do what I must to survive.

I can understand that, I said. So do I.

What I do not like is you whacking me with a big stick every year, breaking off my branches and making the apples rain down before their time, she said.

I am sorry, I told her, but I am now past the age where I can climb trees or even stand on the upper part of a ladder to gently pick the ripe fruit. The squirrels are not so choosy, especially in those years where we have had high heat for days on end. The squirrels want a sweet drink and will ignore my water dishes for your apples.

I will remove the core and rot before using (Margo D. Beller)

And when they drop partially eaten apples, the chipmunks grab them, which is fine, but then the deer come, which is not. One deer is bad enough but the time I came out to find five of them was a horror. I once used an umbrella to hook your branches and pull them closer. Now, I admit, ever since I got the extension pole for another project, it has come in handy to bring down as many apples as possible at once.

But it is not as if your fruit goes to waste. I put the partially eaten ones into the corner of the yard, where I prefer the deer to poop than in the lawn under you. I throw out the really small or bad ones. I put the rest in the cellar and then, when I have the time, energy and inclination, I make pints and quarts of sauce I can freeze and use for months. I would love to compost the parts I don't use but I don't want a forest of apple trees to grow there.

You took down my child, she said.

Your child was small and destroyed by deer, I said. I would've loved to have had two of you for the apples and the shade, but what else could I do? I am trying to balance having something natural and pretty in my backyard with the new realities of suburban life, where wildlife I never would've imagined are showing up in the yard.

You know a bear was once in the neighboring tree, the one you took down, she said.

Yes, I do. That was the first time a bear visited, to my knowledge, many years before the visit that destroyed my bird feeder pole. I came out and found a large indentation in the ground, a lot of scat and broken branches. It is one of the reasons I later had that tree removed and put in my ornamental grass garden. You saw what a bear did to the pear tree over there.

Damaged pear tree (Margo D. Beller)

Yes, she said, I did, and I appreciated all the work you did to save it. It looks very healthy now. I hope a bear does not decide to climb me for my fruit. A 200-pound bear does a lot of damage to apple tree branches. But if it does, there is nothing much I can do about it. I am a tree. If I am struck down, I can only hope one of my seeds grows to keep my line going.

Do not worry, old tree, I said. As long as I can still get up in the morning and bend down to pick up dropped fruit and pull off apples before anything else can get to them, no bear will destroy you.

But we both know that in this life there are no guarantees, to anything.

No, she replied. There aren't.

My Corner Office

A good back porch beats a big corner office.
--from a side panel tacked to my wall that was once on a box that held a sixpack of Mike's Hard Lemonade

From my comfortable chair in the corner of my enclosed porch, a chair that should not even be out here but I had no place to put it after we got some new recliners, I can see the bird house next door where a pair of house wrens are now feeding young. Looking the other way, I can see the hummingbird feeder that has so far drawn one bird to feed.

Backporch dining area, with plants (Margo D. Beller)

If I turn my head even further to the right, I can see my wren box where another house wren took over after a pair of black-capped chickadees apparently abandoned their nest. Another female wren put in a few twigs and now the male sings every morning, hunting for food to bring to the box. Since I hear no chatter of young, I am presuming the female is sitting on eggs.

Some early mornings when I sit out here with my first mug of coffee, I can hear both male wrens "battle" each other in song. I watch the catbirds in summer just as I watched the white-throated sparrows in winter, looking for breakfast from the vantage point of atop the flood wall. I watch the flowering plants in succession: forsythia, quince, dogwood, lilacs, the wild rose.

I am out here most mornings, taking advantage of having a more flexible schedule, no longer killing myself to make the train or drive a major highway, enjoying the quiet as other people head to work and school or run or walk their dogs. I enjoy my solitude as MH sleeps upstairs. This enclosed porch was one of the reasons we bought this house almost 25 years ago.

When we bought it, the porch had a roof and was "walled" with floor to ceiling screens. The first winter we lived here a couple of inches of snow blew in. The company that re-sided the house put in kick plates to block the snow, outside carpeting over the bricks and window panels we could raise and lower, making the porch usable in every season, including summer thanks to our fan, except on the coldest of days (although I have been known to sit out here in winter coat, hood up and blanket on my legs).

It is the best of both worlds, outside the main house but not completely exposed to the elements. "This is outside?" a visiting friend once asked. For me, yes. I can be seen or not seen. I can write, as I am doing out here now, or read or get away from MH or the sound of the washer or dryer and, with headphones, avoid the sound of suburban lawn mowers.

Plants, May 2017 (Margo D. Beller)

This is where I store soil, pots and other plant supplies. It is where I put rooted cuttings into small pots or plants into bigger pots. It is from where I put seed into feeders and take them outside in the mornings, then bring in the feeders to protect them from bears every evening until around Memorial Day.

Now the feeders are put away and many of my front room plants can sit out here all summer, getting a shot of sunlight in the early morning and the late afternoon because of the configuration of the house. If there are two things I'd have changed about this porch they would be to have it facing south instead of north (so my plants can stay out here all year long) and cranks to open and close windows instead of my having to lift them with my balky back.

This porch has hosted large cookouts and MH and me eating our ice cream side by side. It has allowed me to sit in my chair and watch an assortment of common and migrant birds eat seed and suet, the ultimate bird blind.

It is my sanctuary from the stresses of everyday life, although not always from insects. Let others enjoy their outdoor patios or their street-facing front porches. There is something to be said for sitting outside in the breeze, and I enjoy it when I take a folding chair outside in the morning shade to better hear the birds. I can even understand the need to sit out in public and wave at passersby.

My mornings. May 2017 (Margo D. Beller)

But from the comfort of my chair here on my enclosed porch, this is all the society I want as I watch the birds, my jungle of houseplants and the trees' green leaves unfold and later turn color. From here the world looks swell.

Apples and Unintended Consequences

“It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.”
--Henry David Thoreau

There are several important annual events in my backyard. When will the first hummingbird show up at the feeder I put out? When will the ornamental grasses start to grow? When will the house wrens leave the nest box? When will I have enough apples to make apple sauce?

I got the answers to the last two questions on the same day. I discovered the house wren young had left the box and were following their parents around the yard, calling to be fed while being shown how to do it themselves.

That same morning I realized there was not one apple left in the tree. No apple sauce this year.

Apple tree leaves (Margo D. Beller)

This apple tree is peculiar. While most apple trees produce their fruits in the summer going into autumn, this one flowers in the spring and starts producing fruits in June. I don't spray the trees so when I pick these apples (either from the tree or whole ones that are dropped to the ground) I always have to cut them open and cut away the not-so-good stuff.

As a friend of mine once said, the only thing worse than biting into an apple and finding a worm is finding half a worm.

Like birds and people, trees want to survive and perpetuate the species. To do that, the trees fruit. The tree draws insects with flowers. When apples form from the pollinated flower, other insects burrow into them, which in turn draws the birds. In summer, squirrels will climb into the tree to take an apple for the sweet moisture. What they drop will be eaten by deer unless I get to them first.

The seeds from all this eaten fruit will be, to be polite, disseminated all over the place.

Many apple varieties aren't grown from seed but from grafts. That doesn't stop the plant from flowering and fruiting.

Apple from my tree (Margo D. Beller)

This particular apple tree's fruits are sweet and, if allowed to fully ripen, grow to be medium sized and red. I showed one to the head of a local farm market and he said it was a macintosh variety, although not like the type you can buy in grocers.

I rarely get apples fully sized and red because the squirrels start going after them when they are yellow and big enough for them to take a bite. 

When MH and I bought the property decades ago, there were five apple trees, a blueberry bush and a cherry tree.

The cherry tree died of rot and was removed. The blueberry bush had to be removed when we had foundation work done on the house. The smallest of the five apple trees was literally rubbed to death by bucks sharpening their antlers, scraping off all the protective bark. Of the remaining apples trees, we removed one because it got so big we could not get at the fruit until it hit the ground with a splat, at which time the deer would get it.

Two more trees, whose apples were yellow-green, hard and not particularly sweet, were removed because they were too prolific and there was no way I could deal with all those apples drawing the deer, which pooped all over the yard. The blue spruce and the dogwood we put in as replacements don't interest the deer but they do provide shelter for birds.

We now have the one apple and that is still a challenge. For one thing, there's the wren box hanging from one branch. The young growing too big to allow their parents inside to feed them seems to coincide with when the apples start getting large enough to interest the squirrels. The constant visits stress the parent wrens.

It is no surprise that the parents are very eager to get their brood out of the box and flying elsewhere just around the time I start picking apples. I rarely see a second wren family at the box because of all the activity.

Usually in late June or early July I go out in the early morning and pick up all the apples either dropped by the squirrels or by the tree. It takes a lot of energy to produce an apple so the sooner the tree can drop the fruit the better, particularly when hot summers and low rain can weaken the tree. Self-preservation rules.

I throw any chewed apples into a corner or the yard and take the whole ones inside for later processing into sauce. Squirrels and birds are messy eaters, and unless I clean up there would be much more deer mess under the tree than there already is.

Unlike the two trees that were prolific each year, with this tree I'm not always assured of a large crop. Several years ago we had the tree pruned. The following spring, it flowered prolifically and produced a bumper crop to make up for what it lost in the pruning. Quarts of apple sauce for the freezer to last me into the winter months.

House wren box in apple tree (Margo D. Beller)

This spring, however, either because of last year's bounty or the relatively mild winter or the lack of rain or the increase in mad-made pollution, there were few flowers. Few flowers = few fruit. I've managed to get a few apples here and there, not enough for sauce but enough to put into pancakes. I went outside on a Tuesday and picked one relatively large apple just so the squirrels didn't get it.

The next day, I discovered an empty wren box and an empty tree.

While the lack of apples means less work for me, it creates some unintended consequences.

Deer that were expecting apples look for other sources of food - such as what bits of flowers and plants they can get at through my deer netting. Squirrels that used apples as a source of moisture are now hitting the water dishes I have out for the birds. Birds that were using the apples for moisture or to pick off the insects now have to find another food source.

However, there is the chance a second house wren will discover the box, start singing his territorial song and draw a mate to create a second brood. That would more than make up for the loss of apples.

Another Year, Another House Wren

Welcome back, troglodytes aedon.

Every spring there comes a time when I either read a report of returning house wrens or hear one in an area not far from where I live. That afternoon or the next day I get out the wren box I've written about many times before and hang it from the same carefully selected branch in the apple tree, so chosen so I can see the box opening while the leaves keep the box shaded from the late afternoon sun. (Several past posts on house wrens were written in June 2011, and you'll have to go back to find them rather than click on a link. Apologies.)

Wren box (Margo D. Beller)

Usually it takes a week to 10 days for a house wren to find the box. This year was no exception, although it took the wren a day or two of scoping out the yard first - it went to the seed feeder, although house wrens don't usually go to feeders, and the water utensils, then flew back to the bushes.

I know when the box has been chosen because this is when this tiny bird proclaims its territory loud and continuously with its bubbly song. I have seen it high in a tree or in a branch above my head that allows it to face the box. Once you learn its song, you don't forget it.

Also, I know when he has found a mate. The song is the same but it becomes softer, more like a reassuring "I'm here, I'm just nearby looking for food." One of its song takes on a rising pattern, almost like a warbler. And there is that harsh scolding noise it makes if I or anything else come too close to the nest box.

It is not long before the female, if she agrees this is the right spot for the young, places twigs in the box. Every year I look for the tell-tale bit of twig coming out of the bottom of the box, a sign that this place is in use so stay away. Considering five to eight eggs are laid, I am continually amazed a nest and brooding female can fit. When the eggs hatch, both parents take turns getting food and sitting on the nest.

As the chicks grow, the parents stay outside the nest box but in close proximity. One parent flies to the opening with an insect and the peeping begins. It only gets louder as the young birds get bigger.

It takes about two weeks for these eggs to hatch and another two weeks before the birds learn to fly and leave the nest. At that point the box goes silent but I hear the brood following one parent or another around the hedges at the edge of my yard.

House wren, back yard apple tree (Margo D. Beller)

I learn new things about house wrens every year. The rising song I mentioned before was new to me this year. In past years I've learned a house wren has no hesitation in destroying the nest of another bird to take over the spot, in that particular case a black-capped chickadee that got to the box first. I have also learned jays will eat house wren chicks if one has the misfortune to get too close to the opening at the wrong time, or falls out to the ground when attempting to fledge.

Most times, only one wren family uses the box each year. That may be because when the apples start growing the squirrels start climbing everywhere and I start picking or, if out of reach, batting at the apples to bring them down with an extension pole. At that point the house wren may decide this is not his neighborhood.

But once in a long while, when apple season is done, another house wren comes by and checks out the establishment. It may remove some of the twigs or it may just use what's there, like renting a furnished flat.

House wrens got their common name because they will build a nest in anything - a flower pot, the pocket of a shirt on a hook, a tiny space inside or next to your shed. As long as it provides shelter from bad weather and is hidden from predators, it can be used.

(The larger Carolina wren, which stays in my area all year, will also build nests in anything and will sing loud and long to proclaim territory, draw a mate and warn if danger is near, even if it is only me. But it is too big for my nest box. The tiny winter wren prefers a different type of habitat than what my yard can provide.)

My wren house offers a distinct advantage by its very wooden sturdiness and its hanging from a tensile wire strung from a branch. I've had to make some repairs to it over the years, but the pleasure my yearly tenants bring me is more than worth the effort. Then, when the house wrens head south for the winter, the box is cleaned and brought inside to await another year and another house wren.