March 28 - The Best Nest

For those of you who know me even a little, you know I'm not a fan of birds. We have been in our house for four years now and for the past three years, about this time, I find myself ducking as I walk in our front door. A bird family has decided that is a good place to build a nest. One year, I removed two nests within two days....yes, there were eggs in it and all you bird lovers can go ahead and call PETA on me - birds do not belong on my house! So this morning I went for a walk and upon coming home was nearly attacked by a bird also making her way home: to her nest above the front door...behind the wind chime I have hung there (obviously not working as a deterrent). ARGH!

So this afternoon I tried to get Coco to scare the bird away - she was sitting happily on her nest. Coco wasn't interested - I guess if the bird is that far above her head, she doesn't notice them....or maybe Coco is only interested in chasing cats. ANYWAY, birdie flew away, I got a chair and the dustpan and scooped up the nest. Well, poked and prodded and swept was more like it. I got the nest - all intact - onto the dust pan FULLY INTENDING to relocate it to a nearby bush or in the open field across the street where rabbits and coyotes live...it was really cool! I brought it to the backyard to show Carolyn and Elyse (who are in the pool today - "it's so hot, Mom!"). Carolyn thinks birds are pretty amazing builders. Elyse really didn't care. Even this bird disliker is amazed at their architecture: grass and twigs for the base and then paper, cotton (birdie scored well finding those cotton balls!) and soft fuzzy type stuff for the inside. I passed the garbage can and thought, "If I throw it in there, they can't salvage anything to rebuild..." then I walked across the road with it and tossed the whole thing into the field. Maybe I was feeling soft for the birds and thought even a bird shouldn't be totally homeless.

I came back to the front door to put my chair away and it was only then that I noticed the yellow splotches of broken egg on the sidewalk. I breathed a little sigh of sadness at the taking of two innocent baby bird lives....then scraped them off the sidewalk and went about my day.

I hope mama bird finds a better place - a more bird friendly place than my front door - to build her next nest. Or do they only lay eggs once a year and that was it? Is my work as home wrecker/egg breaker done for another year? Let's hope so.