Late nesters

I am not, thank God, what one would call a formal gardener.

Strait rows, bare ground, and no weeds are not really what turns my crank. I like things a little more natural. Gardening should be fun, it should  be low cost and low, low maintenance.  It should not be something that works against Nature. So I have many little wild looking areas to which, maintenance wise, I  pay little attention to: I let Mother Nature do her thing. And yet it is to these areas that I am often drawn, like a bear to honey, just to stop look and listen.

One of these crazy little areas features a less-than-shoulder-height, dwarf Alberta spruce. This is a thick, short needled tree, that was originally rescued from a cemetery planting which had to be removed; having, when young, been planted too close to the stone. When I was asked if I wanted it, of course I said yes. That was about five or six years ago. I replanted it in the garden just out from my canary flight cage. Just a narrow, often, and daily, used path runs between it and they. It  flanks, in effect, a high traffic area..

Nevertheless, each year, since its initial planting, a pair of little chipping sparrows have nested there. The tightly spaced branches hide well their hair-lined nest. But the other day when a couple of friends dropped by to chat for a moment, and while we looked at the canaries, I decided to show them where the chippy had nested earlier in the spring.

When I did that, at first glance I thought the nest was missing; it was not where it originally was. At second glance I saw what I thought was their nest about five inches over from where I thought it should be, and so it was there I pointed it out as that of said chippy. I reasoned that perhaps someone had pulled it out to take a closer look and had shoved it back in the wrong place.

But later, having a keen eye  for detail, when I checked it again I was to find that it was not the same nest, nor was it the nest of the same species. The original hair-lined  nest, of the chippy, was lying now on the ground and the nest I was looking at was lined with fine grasses. It was definitely the nest of the slightly larger song sparrow. As both nests were now empty I had no way of knowing whether or not they had both nested so close to each other, or whether one was the fore and the other perhaps after. It is a question I might find the answer too if I watch closely next year.

In the meantime, just yesterday, the third week in August, I watched out my breakfast nook window as a pair of goldfinches plucked the fluffy down from a couple of giant scotch thistles which, at the Little Lady’s suggestion.  I had planted the previous year as a backdrop to our lily pool frog pond.

They were not searching for the seeds. They made trip after trip flying up over the corner of our house roof, with their tiny beaks full of thistle down. They were obviously building a nest somewhere up there in the maple out front of our house. Goldfinches are late nesters as they do not migrate in winter as most other birds do, so Mother Nature lets them nest and raise their young while fluff of the thistle is available for nest building, and the high protein seed is left to fully ripen, unable to float away, readily available  to later feed their young.

Later that same day, as I trimmed some low branches from multiple trees that we had planted about five years ago, in the yard of the Arts Centre in Elora, I was being scolded by a nervous pair of these same goldfinches. They flipped back and forth, not far from my head, until I final realized that I was bothering them. On closer scrutiny, I soon found their tiny newly built nest about two feet above my head, tightly woven in the fork of a limb on one of the young maples.  Fortunately, they had chosen a tree that did not need pruning.

By-the-way folks, it is fall fair time, and to give each of you a chance to buy a wheelbarrow full of my books to give as gifts, I’ll be displaying all three at both Arthur and Fergus Fall Fairs. See you all there.

Take care, ‘cause we care.

 

 

Barrie Hopkins

Comments