April is drawing to a close, which means that, here in the
southeastern U.S., most of the summer-resident birds have arrived on their breeding
territories.
They join the year-round
resident species—including phoebes, cardinals, Carolina Wrens, and bluebirds—that
have possibly already nested this season, and could be starting on second
broods.
Several of these common, resident birds spend a lot of time around human habitation, so if you live in this region of
the country, you may have noticed nesting behavior from some of them during the last couple of months. The ones that typically build around my home are Carolina Wrens and Eastern Phoebes, which I see in
the yard almost every day.
In the spring
and summer, the Carolina Wrens will often build their small, domed nests in the
garage or in the chairs or potted plants on the patio.
This April, they built a nest on top of some random stuff in the garage.
As you can see, they
used grasses, oak blossoms, mosses, leaves, and string in the outer layer.
There are several enormous post oak and red
oak trees in the yard, so oak blossoms were all over the place earlier this
season, and I have to say that I was getting sick of tracking them into the
house.
Good thing that the wrens were
able to repurpose them.
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| Carolina Wren eggs |
Finer grasses and various bits of fuzz—feathers and possibly fur—lined the nest, and, as the photo shows, the female wren laid five
eggs. This is normal for Carolina
Wrens, which lay anywhere from three to seven.
The female wren incubated the eggs for several days.
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| Incubating |
Wrens build nests around the house every
year, and, apart from peeking into the nests every now and then during the roughly
month-long process from incubation to fledging, I never really do anything that
could disturb them.
For one thing, it’s technically
illegal to disturb or damage the eggs and young of wild birds, and for another,
I figure that interfering with nature is usually unwarranted.
The main exception I will make is for species
that are endangered, or just generally imperiled.
Carolina
Wrens, though?
Thankfully, they seem to
be doing just fine.
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| The empty nest |
The
species is
doing just fine, that is.
Unfortunately,
these particular individuals had their nest raided by some sort of predator
before the eggs could hatch.
Maybe a
snake?
Several nonvenomous species,
including gray ratsnakes, black racers, and speckled kingsnakes, are pretty
common in this area.
I do not endorse
killing snakes, by the way; they have a right to be here, and the benefits that
they provide (e.g., rodent control) far outweigh any damage that they occasionally
do to the birds that people love to watch.
Below is a picture I took a couple of years ago of a large gray ratsnake
that had taken up residence in the garage.
A raccoon is another possibility; although I haven’t yet seen raccoons
near the house itself, I know that they hang out in the woods at the creek.
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| Gray ratsnake |
The Carolina Wrens have not re-nested in the garage, but,
given the fact that a pair of wrens can have up to three broods a year, I
suspect that they
do have another
nest somewhere close.
Hopefully, the
second brood will fare better.
On a lighter note, even though the wrens had a failed nest
this spring, the Eastern Phoebes successfully raised at least three young over the garage entrance. Phoebes typically don’t build low to the
ground, so unless you bring out a ladder, you’re probably going to have a hard
time looking into their nests. Until
they hatch and the young birds are large enough to stick their heads over the
edge, I usually have no idea how many eggs there were. The brood sizes of phoebes can vary fairly widely—from
two to six. Like Carolina Wrens, phoebes
easily acclimate to human activity; as long as you leave them alone, they will
nest year after year in the same spot on a ledge, over a porch, or
under an eave or a bridge.
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| The phoebes' nest |
The phoebe nestlings in the garage nest grew rapidly, and
eventually the concrete below became coated with bird droppings—yuck.
I expected the birds to fledge a day or two
before they finally did; they had been looking very large and mature, but I
guess that they weren’t finished developing yet.
On the day that they
did wind up leaving, I was standing at one side of the garage
entrance and peering at them through my binoculars.
My presence apparently agitated them, because
they all blasted out of the nest at once and flew strongly to the row of
hardwood trees lining the driveway.
Clearly,
they were ready!
Maybe the adult phoebes
will start another brood, or maybe not.
They
can have up to two per year.
For many of
the other bird species on this property, however, the season is just getting
started.
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| Phoebe nestlings |
