Funky Nest Entries, 181-190
181. Cherril Hale
I was amazed when I found three nests in some hanging ferns. Same birds (Morning Doves) but the nests were each so different..one made entirely of sticks. one made with soft branches and the other one of leaves and cotton..even the shapes and size were different.I saved them after the birds left and have had fun showing to the kids in the neighborhood..
182. Jennifer and Caroline Gans, Sarasota, Florida
Our entry is a photo of a dove that wanted to nest between the hood and windshield of a car that belongs to some of our friends. Our friends tried to deter her by placing a plastic snake on the hood. After a very short time she realized the deception and resumed building her nest!
Submitting this photo was the idea of my 5 year-old daughter, Caroline Gans. Here is her verbatim description of the story behind the photo:
"This dove only wanted to build a nest on our friends' car. Every day they pulled the sticks out, but she started again! They got the idea to put a snake there. The dove pecked at it for three days and then built her nest right next to it. The end."
183. Amy Cornell, Camden, Maine
As I was taking down my Christmas wreath --it was almost Easter (April 12) when I got around to it -- my yellow lab Indy (she is in the door in the first picture) came over to sniff around my feet which alerted me to two tiny blue eggs broken on the ground. I then noticed a small perfect nest nestled in the inside of the wreath with one egg left. I quickly put the wreath with the nest and egg back on its nail. The next day Indy was sniffing the ground under the wreath and there was the third egg -- this time tossed out of the nest. Too
bad I thought and went about my business. A few days later I thought I had better take the wreath down. Well, weren't there two more eggs! I have left it alone since then (now it is June 10, date of the pictures below). I am not sure whether the nesting is successful. I have never seen birds fly in or out and the wreath is too high for me to look in without disturbing anything. I have read that House Finches (my hunch as to what type of bird is nesting) are very quiet, even the babies, so I am waiting, waiting, waiting. I think by now
the eggs must have hatched. In the close up of the wreath, you can see the dry grass nesting material sticking out.
184. Jerry Acton, Berkshire, New York
For the past 5 years a pair of phoebes have built a nest in our garage. I built a small wooden platform that I screwed to the garage ceiling to entice them to stay off the garage door opener sprocket. I have to stuff bags over the sprockets each year. It has to be the same pair, because they go right in the garage the day they arrive.
This shot was taken hours before they all fledged.
In all, they have now raised 40 chicks in our garage. Four have already
fledged this year and the female is now sitting on the second set of eggs. We leave our garage door open at night during nesting season and I put a cover over the garage door opener buttons so no one can use them.
185. Michael Shelbert, Hagerstown, Maryland
A bird has been building her nest in our squirrel-proof birdfeeder for the past few years. I went out to feed the birds about 2 weeks ago and there were two eggs in the feeder. Yesterday when I went out seven eggs were in the feeder.
186. Hubert J. Steed, New York, New York
Mourning Dove with two Chicks in LaGuardia Place Corner Garden Rose Arbor, Greenwich Village, NYC
We're not accustomed to see nesting doves in Manhattan, but this community garden has a few bird houses with nesting sparrows. This is the first season I've seen nesting doves in the garden. I'm one of several unofficial photographers of this community garden.
187. Caroline Stafford, Lincoln Academy, Rapid City, South Dakota
(Lincoln Academy is part of the alternative high school program in Rapid
City, South Dakota)
Last year my 9th graders at Lincoln Academy were fascinated with the
"Rastafarian birds" that we had in our courtyard (w. tanagers).
Today, we discovered a robin building her nest on a downspout from the
roof gutters on our building, in full view of the math classroom. If anyone remembers those last days of school before summer vacation, you can imagine how much more interesting that was than Algebra 1 ! Given that we are in the Lincoln building, she has been dubbed Mary Todd. Mr. Lincoln watched the proceedings from a favorite elm branch, offering his tuneful "encouragement" . The girls thought he was a typical male, letting the female do all the housework, the boys objected loudly to that charge.
Mary Todd has selected the usual robinesque building materials, with the
addition of a dryer fabric softener sheet and a lovely foot long piece of plastic netting she found somewhere.
We decided to try an experiment, and offered her some bits of string to see if she would use them as well. Kids picked out red and white, which we cut into short, robin-safe lengths and hung them on the 8' chain link fence that protects that corner of our building's basement access.
My budding naturalists were astonished and delighted to watch her pick the string off the fence and add it to her framework within minutes of
offering it to her. You never know what might turn kids, who have never noticed a bird in their lives, into birders or careful stewards of the environment.
I am glad I'm not the Algebra teacher this week!
Kids can be so cool sometimes when you least expect it. You may be sure they will be keeping track of her progress till June 9, when vacation officially starts.
Update June 10, 2009
Mary Todd is now sitting on the nest and very suspicious of on-lookers and photographers, however, she did not move from her post while I took pictures through the window of our school office.Mr. Lincoln is keeping watch from his elm tree perch by the flagpole, an appropriate spot for a gentleman of the political persuasion. We hope to keep photo documentation for the kids to see when they return in the fall, today is the first day of our summer vacation!
Given that we have had 4 days of damp rainy weather, Mary Todd is dry and cozy with a brick building behind her and a solid roof overhead, wise creature that she is to select this spot.
Update July 4, 2009
The nest of Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln successfully fledged all 4 youngsters on the 4th of July! Here we sit, 25 miles from Mt. Rushmore National Memorial, and they choose Independence Day to become independent.
How cool is that! Attaching additional photos for you of the family 3 days before the launch and Mary Todd coming in with the robin equivalent of a Big Mac.
188. Michael Roberts, Meriden, Connecticut
We have a barn in Oxford, NY that has some deer antlers of various sizes attached to the face of the barn. This year a couple of robins chose one of the antlers to build a nest in. Attached is a photo of the nest with a couple of eggs showing. As I send this, the young have just hatched but I did not want to disturb them.
189. Sandy & April Bryan, Berea, Ohio
Here is a Robin's nest that was made on a ladder located under the eve of our garage. In the picture you see 2 baby robins about to leave the nest for the first time!
We also have pictures from day 1,(Mothers Day 2009) which is the day we noticed the eggs, to the 12th day, the day they left the nest. What a nice
Mothers Day gift that was! There were 4 eggs, but only 2 survived. It was
amazing to see the progress from eggs to their first flight! My 11 year old
daughter took all the pictures that documented this great miracle!
190. Linda Pointer, Columbus, Ohio
We live in a typical suburban area. Late in the afternoon of April 22, 2009, our 5 year old granddaughter helped me mulch the beds in the front of our house. The next morning, I discovered a strange saucer shape between a small shrub and the wall of the garage, not more than 3 feet from the front walk. Using a piece of mulch, I scratched around in the mulch and discovered an egg, large enough to suspect it was a duck egg. For the next few days, we did not see any ducks but saw another egg exposed in the nest each day. About the fifth day, "Mommy Duck" was found on the nest and continued to be there until May 28th. We talked to her each day as we passed by and eventually gave her a large dog bowl filled with water because it was so hot with the sun beating against the white stucco wall. We discovered that she liked grapes and occasionally dropped a few next to her. Neighbors of all ages came by daily to check on her and our granddaughter kept watch, reading books about mallards to figure out what would happen next.
On Friday the 28th of May, I noticed a duckling peeking out from under "Mommy Duck" and our granddaughter and I continued to watch for three hours as one after another of her eggs hatched. She ate an occasional grape, ate some of the egg shells and continued to sit on the nest. While we could only count 8 ducklings, we knew there had been 10 eggs. The entire neighborhood dropped by to watch the show, standing only feet away from the duck and ducklings as the mother duck was completely unfazed.
On the 29th at 9 am, I discovered that the duck was still on her nest with 10 ducklings and was concerned that it was 3/4 of a mile to the river, with no ponds close by and a major highway to cross. I called for help from our local animal control who appeared shortly thereafter, and placed the female mallard in one animal carrier and the ducklings in another. We followed the truck to the river where the female was released first onto a large rock and immediately went into the river. We released the ducklings a minute later and the female gave one quack and the ducklings followed her into the river. Four hours later I returned to the river with our granddaughter so that she could see that the ducks were OK. We located them on a small muddy bank not far from where she had been released, where the ducklings were all safely away from the wakes of boats and three or four male mallards were keeping watch.
Several hours later, some of the neighbors went to the river and were also able to locate the family of mallards and photograph them. While we helped to protect the mother duck and her ducklings, she provided a lesson not only to our granddaughter and neighbors, but to all of the children in our granddaughter's kindergarten class who enjoyed our series of photos. That the ducks brought our neighbors together in a new way was an extra bonus.
Attached are photos from a series....1. The nest with the eggs on one of the few occasions that the female left the nest. 2. Mother Mallard on the nest with a few of her ducklings showing beneath her. The stucco wall next to her is the front of our house, just two feet from the brick path leading to the front door. 3. Just after the ducklings were released at the river. Mother was quacking at the last two ducklings who were slow to join her. 4. Mother with ducklings shortly after their release on the river. 5. Hours after their release, Mother and ducklings had found a new home in a small safe cove on the river.
A small follow-up regarding our ducks which hatched in front of our house and were released to the Scioto River. Last week, granddaughter, Katie (6), and I decided to go fishing at the river where the ducks were released. She had received a fishing pole for her birthday in July, but had not yet had the opportunity to use it. It was a beautiful day, we dug worms, drove to the river and decided to use the large flat rock where the ducks had been released, to try our luck. We hadn't been there very long when six ducklings swam up to us. While Katie thought they might be our ducks, I mentioned that there were only six and we had released 10. Within ten minutes as the ducklings had been swimming nearby in tall grass, we recounted and found that there were now 10 ducklings, one adult female and one male. The ducks were obviously considerably larger than when they were released, but we had little question that these were the same ducks. They paraded back and forth in front of us and eventually moved on. I would give anything if I had taken my camera with me. We are convinced that they were "our" ducklings because of the number of them and the size which was appropriate for the length of time since we had released them. To think that they have all survived for several months, made us feel very happy on a very beautiful day. Thought you might enjoy the sequel!
