Fall is coming

My best guess is that fall is nearly here, despite what the calendar says… I'll tell you why.  Every spring, very early spring, Ms. Robin appears in our yard outside the bedroom window. She is a busy body if I ever saw one. She flits tree to tree to establish which set of junipers will be hers. Sometimes it is the set of two in the rock courtyard, while other times it is the front three that are far, far away from the other birds. Around the time that she came back this year, the red-winged blackbird had already made its first appearance. At this time of the year, snow can still fly. The first year that we lived here, I was panicked because there was no food on the trees and the earth was too frozen to retrieve worms from. So, I headed to the nearest grocery store and bought dried fruit and frozen blueberries. She wasn't too keen on the mushy blueberries, but loved the dried fruit. Robins live approx. two years and my feeding them has gone on now for fifteen.

Every spring, I long to hear her voice. It wasn't always that way. Birds waking me up or keeping me up wasn't always a good thing for me. As I've grown to love birds, interact with them, feed and nurture them, I long to see their lives/seasons play out.

It is really something to watch as all manner of birds fight for prime real estate here in this little corner of what I call home (for now). Besides the junipers, there is a small marsh with cattails right below our front door. It is here that the prime real estate is albeit a bit hectic due to the feeders we place there.

When we first moved in, there were no birds. There were big spiders--BIG, mosquitos, and wasps. Nothing else. The spiders were there to eat the insects because there were no birds. The wasps were there to eat the spiders. We started by feeding hummingbirds, then Baltimore Orioles, house finches, sparrows, a lot of birds we could never identify fast enough before they were gone; red-winged blackbirds, grackles, robins, the last two winters, three pairs of morning doves, cardinals, blue-jays, and more.

After the red-winged blackbirds get here, the grackles arrive, and then the hummingbirds, and soon after that the Baltimore Orioles. We've been feeding over-wintering house finches and cardinals for ten winters now. They are still here, of course, to eat, all summer long. I search all spring and summer for deals and buy them suet cakes, black oil sunflower, wild bird mix, and peanuts. We have one cute Nuthatch that loves fresh peanuts. We also have chickadees staying with us throughout the summer--that were here in the snow all winter long. Sometimes they leave us early to go somewhere else when the bird population gets too large here. Once the winter snow flies--they always come back.

Now, nearly the whole side of the building we live in feeds the birds. This, all the while, the last manager forbade us to feed off our porch. So, we all got creative and put feeders up on tree branches easy to reach. There is a lot of work caring for birds. We have feeders with jam and water on our porch all spring that the house finches rely on. So, from late March to late July, we feed jam to the finches and orioles and homemade syrup to the hummingbirds. Daily, I clean off the porch as there is always at least one oriole who has to make a mess. It's important to clean all food and water dishes daily and clean the feeders well, at least weekly, which we do all year round now.

Once everyone gets their first drink and establishes that we will be their food source - they begin

making nests. Things then progress to the male house finches lining up on our porch rail taking turns eating. Initially, we see the males doing their mating dances for the females and then the pairing up of the two. Then the female builds the nest and within just a couple of weeks she lays 4–6 eggs. The males will continue to feed and bring food to her and the hatchlings. They may create up to 6 clutches a season, but usually only manage 3-4. Sometime around late April or early May, we usually see the hummingbirds return. The hummingbirds often fight one another, so eventually we set up two or three feeders to accommodate them. Down at the feeders we have a lot of competition for the seed and the leftover suet from winter. These last three or four years we've had mourning dove pairs --which, I absolutely love as I love the call they make. This summer one of the mourning doves has been bringing me trinkets and leaving them in my garden. 

Earlier this summer, I received shells she had found in the marsh. At first, I didn't know what was going on and then one day, I watched her drop one at our front door. She also brought me a shiny pink rock and a broken monarch's wing. It is almost surreal to have such a thing going on with a bird. It breaks my heart that people hunt and kill this beautiful bird. With so many predators after them all the time, the average mourning dove lives one year. Added into the mix these last two years are several rabbits--Peter, Patsy, and Penny are here this year. All winter and early spring we had a lovely opossum that I named Polly.  We have two shrews named Mike and Ike, and when the water is high in the marsh we have a muskrat that I've named Sam. 

There are very few spiders here anymore, though I do still see the occasional garden spider. There are still plenty of bugs/mosquitos, thanks to the marsh. We see several varieties of butterflies; moths, dragonflies, and bees. When the owner doesn't spray pesticide--we've actually seen honey bees. This year there were no bees at all except sweat bees, which thankfully work with me and pollinate my tomatoes.

In very early spring, the red-tailed hawk makes its appearance and the crows chase him off. This is their territory even though I only see them in it when he appears.  Very late summer, Mr & Mrs Blue Jay appear (loudly) and he takes claim of the biggest part of the marsh once the red-winged blackbirds and grackles leave. Late fall, Ms. Mourning becomes the most highly esteemed female bird on the premises, as Ms. Robin takes her leave.

Mr. Blue Jay is calling loudly as I type (the red-winged blackbirds and grackles left almost five weeks ago), and Ms. Robin? Well, she took her leave soon after. I shall miss her dearly. Fall is coming.

Until next time, be well.