Spring Has Sprung

Fred and Ethel are back. No, not the Mertz’s but the bluebirds. Fred and Ethel are what I lovingly call the pair of bluebirds I have living in my backyard. Mostly because the two are always dropping into my yard unannounced and without knocking much like the other Fred and Ethel did with the Ricardo’s. And I have to assume they are the same pair as in previous years. I couldn’t bear to think that just any old bluebirds were occupying my nest box. As if my bluebirds could be a couple of randy, lascivious things just looking for some cheap flop house. No… I’m certain Fred and Ethel are back once again from their winter home. Last year I (well… they) fledged two broods. Two years ago I (I mean they) had one brood. The brood 3 years ago died in a catastrophic collision when my son hit the nest box post with the lawnmower.

For many years I’ve maintained a couple of bluebird next boxes in my back yard. In my old house - a townhouse that backed to fairly dense woods - I never got bluebirds to set up residence. I’d get chickadees or house wrens but never bluebirds. They are both fine birds to be sure but not in the same league as bluebirds.

When we moved into our new house, which has more open territory, the bluebirds moved right in. It happened so fast it was as if my realtor told them I was coming.

I haven’t been as attentive in my yardly duties this year as I should have. The array of feeding stations I set up for the winter-feeding season lingered unattended far too long into the spring. Work, college visits, and running have distracted me from my usual springtime Harry Homeowner obligations. Nor had I been paying attention to my nest boxes.

This past weekend was warm and without rain so I decided it was high time to get the yard fixed up. The first thing on the list was to find out what – if anything – was going on inside my birdhouses. I first checked my “decoy” nest box. The decoy box is located about 50 feet from my other bluebird house. Its purpose is to attract birds other than bluebirds, which in the Maryland suburbs are most likely to be house sparrows.

Most birders despise house sparrows with a vengeance. They are a ubiquitous species not native to North America. Being an exotic, house sparrows are not protected by wildlife regulations. Bluebirds – and those of us trying to raise bluebirds - feel much more strongly. House sparrows are Satan-incarnate: marauding, brutal killers that will destroy bluebird eggs, chicks, and mother if allowed to get inside a bluebird’s nesting cavity. So my decoy box has a sparrow trap inside. When sprung, the trap keeps the bird in the house until I arrive to dispatch the bird if it’s a house sparrow and release it if it’s something else.

Unfortunately my decoy box had a sparrow nest inside. My hopes for the other box diminished. I cleaned out the nest, set the sparrow trap, and moved on to my other box. Being so early in the season and because I hadn’t heard bluebirds singing, I wasn’t prepared for what I found inside: Ethel sitting on a clutch of four bluebird chicks that have already hatched! How could I have been so inattentive? I hadn’t even noticed them building their nest. What kind of host am I? Needless to say on the way home tonight, I’ll be stopping for mealworms.

And I’ve already sent two house sparrows to that great nest box in the sky.
K-