The Birds and the Bees

Pukeko G gets the honors for guessing first what caused my chickadees to abandon house and home. It was a buzzing bumblebee nest deep inside the chickadee nest.  The answer was slowly revealed, and got more surprising by the day as I watched, read, and learned. I originally thought Madame Chickadee had already laid her eggs, but when she abandoned the nest, I assumed she had gone somewhere else to lay them. I read online that chickadees often build several nests as back-up, and it is not unusual for them to move if they have to. So I sent them my best wishes for finding a good place in time for the coming of the eggs, happy in the hope that Nest B, wherever it was, would suit them better.

I did notice a fat bumblebee flying around abandoned Nest A when I eventually opened the house, and even took note of how fearless it was. It flew right to the nest and crawled on the mossy top while I was still peeking, but I thought only that the bee was curious. I didn't know enough then to imagine it was nesting in there.

Notice the blurry hovering bee at the door.

How could I not guess she was going to her nest?  But I didn't.

One article said to remove abandoned bird nests to encourage rebuilding, so after enough days to ensure the chickadees were permanently gone, I talked Moe into helping me with the task.  I don't know what I was afraid of, but I didn't want to do it alone.

He slipped it out of the box on a kitchen spatula. Imagine our surprise when the nest itself began to buzz. Not a soft buzz that could be chalked up to imagination. No. This was a furious insistent buzz that wouldn't quit. Moe laid the nest in the dry bed of a nearby birdbath, and we stood still to listen and wonder. Not only was it buzzing. It was vibrating. I whipped out my phone and began taking a video. One mossy depression in particular was shaking, and as my camera and I watched, out of that spot wiggled a huge fuzzy bumblebee.  It hovered over the hole for a moment with a piece of green moss hanging from its leg. It shook it off, then zoomed over my shoulder and away. I could not have been more surprised, but was thrilled to get it on video, already thinking what a great blog post it would make.



Still, I didn't get that the bee had a nest in there. I just thought it had gotten stuck, and I was its great liberator. But alas, after only one viewing, I deleted the video immediately.  Now I regret the hasty decision, but at the time, my background commentary so embarrassed me, I knew I would never post it. Let's just say it did not represent me well :-).  In the surprise of the moment I lost all pretense of acting like an adult. It's quite shocking to hear oneself in the act of being oneself.

But I digress. We left the box-shaped nest in the birdbath, thinking that was the end of the story. But two days later I heard it buzzing again.  That's when I finally realized there was a bumblebee nest inside and it was likely what had frightened off the chickadees. So I wrote that last blog post, asking for guesses, though it's clear to me now that most people, like Moe and Pukeko G, could figure it out right away. Two more days passed and the buzzing stopped.  A couple of pokes with a stick helped me decide the hot sun had sent the queen bumblebee packing.

Meantime, I read Patricia Lichen's coincidental and informative blog post about the nesting habits of a queen bumblebee, and it made me curious to see if there was such a colony inside our nest, now abandoned by everyone.  So yesterday I raked it apart with a couple of sticks and sure enough, found the remains of a hard waxy bumblebee colony along with another surprise that I didn't notice at all until I looked at the photos in my camera.

Remains of bumblebee colony that fell out of mossy nest when I raked it open.

Bumblebee colony turned over.

But look!  What's that in the lower right hand corner of the photo?

Just one lonely chickadee egg! 

To give you an idea of size.

See how precious and tiny.

Then came the biggest surprise of all.  The nest had fallen apart into two layers—top and bottom.  The bumblebee colony was in the bottom layer.  I had combed through both sections with my sticks, so I was pretty sure there was only one egg.  But just in case, I gently raked through the top layer one more time. And look what I found, carefully hidden under the downy cover.

So special and fragile. So well protected. They were probably doomed from the moment that queen bumblebee began her magnum opus, the great work of her life, but how heavy my heart to discover it now. Are the parents grieving? Will they mate again?  Have they begun a new nest? Oh, the beauty and brutality of the natural world. dkm

What Harm Befell Them?

 My chickadees are gone. Just gone. As in not here anymore. Replaced by silence and mystery. The abandoned nest of green moss, grass, and oak pollen, was topped with fluff of chickadee down. No eggs. No eggshells. No completion of the work in progress. No farewell message. No hint as to what harm befell the poor things, and surely it was harm. What would cause a diligent pair of chickadees to abandon their nest so near hatching time, if not harm or threat to their safety?

I had watched them for only three days. His regular bringing of food to the doorway led me to believe she was keeping eggs warm, if not already brooding newly hatched young. Then on the fourth day all was quiet. Being only two weeks from the time of the building of the nest and not yet having heard tiny chirps, I'm pretty sure it was too soon for nestlings to have fledged. I watched for a few more days, making sure all nest activity had ceased before I dared open the box to peek inside. The only sign of activity was a large bumble bee flying around near the box. At first I thought the mother had died on her nest. On closer inspection, it turned out to be only fluff, or down.

In this day of hi-tech instant answers to questions, it seems inconceivable that we will never know what happened. Still, the wonder and mystery of the natural world is exactly that. Wonder and mystery. Even in a civilized backyard, we can never have all the answers. It is as it should be—and the reason for the magnetic attraction for all of us, is it not?

 I was so looking forward to seeing a chickadee family into the world. Was it my imagination that the mysterious black cat lurking in the bushes across the way on the morning of the fourth day of observation was licking his chops?  But now I have another guess that may be more likely. Will share it next post.  It has to do with what we found on April 7th when we removed the nest from the box, and what still buzzes there today. Anyone care to guess before I post pictures? dkm

Sir Chickadee at the door, March 28

Several days of silence and mystery

April 4th

Closer view, April 4th

Oy Vey . . .

Let me not spend March indoors again.  Carolina chickadees are already well into tending a nest in last year's bluebird house and I almost missed it for housecleaning! Oy vey! I don't know what got into me—some sort of manic preoccupation with organizing every room coupled with the ruthless throwing out of things. Let it not be an omen that something alarming is about to happen for which I need to have my house in order.  More likely, it's that things had come to such a state of neglect, something had to be done for the tranquility of my soul :-).  Even more likely, and as my psychology professor friend Steve believes, it was that I am on the verge of finishing my manuscript, a prospect so frightening I must take drastic measures to prevent it—measures as drastic as organizing my office, cleaning the basement and re-alphabetizing all the books in the house. For real. I did all of those things, but I swear I want to finish my book. Can't imagine why I would so sabotage myself. Steve says it happens all the time. Proving him wrong is enough motivation to goad me into finishing—as soon as I clean off my desk.  That's a project worth two days of prevention.

Whatever, I was vaguely aware of the possibility of chickadees in the birdhouse, because about two weeks ago, my grandchildren and I saw two of them entering and leaving repeatedly with bits of moss in their beaks.  Oh the magic of witnessing such an event with young children—the whispering, the stillness, the rapt attention. When we were sure both chickadees had flown away, we opened and peeked inside the house, thrilling at the freshly built-up layers of pine straw and soft green moss we found there. But I feared we had chased them off because I didn't see them again until today, though I had only glanced briefly on my daily passes to and from the compost heap.

To be truthful I haven't been longsitting outside recently, in favor of watching this year's Spring through window of house and car.  The beauty of spring bloom in Atlanta is so extreme it appears extravagant even through glass, until you sit outside and recognize you've only perceived a fraction of its intensity. Yesterday I sat out for two hours, unable to tear myself from the directness of the sensations. One can do nothing but gasp in astonishment at the cherry petals falling like snow on every warm breeze, the fluffy azalea color at every turn impossible to comprehend, the lacy white dogwood blossoms sprinkled across yards and woods, the inchworms and strands of oak pollen floating by on invisible filaments of silk, the occasional glints of sunlight traveling along the filaments, the aggressive territorial birdsong mingled with flirtatious chase and flutter of mating season, the rattle of woodpecker on the gutter, the cack-cack-cack-cack of nuthatch, the boastful variety of cardinal calls, and the pleasure of all pleasures—chickadees in and out of the copper-roofed bird house.

I think she's egg-sitting and he's tending her. As yet I hear no tiny chirps, but soon. Today begins Nestwatch 2012, this year of Carolina chickadees.  May they see me through the finishing of the fabled "manuscript."  dkm

Madam Chickadee protecting her eggs from the respectful but unskilled photographer.  Click once on the photo to enlarge and see her pretty white cheeks. 

Kerfuffle in Bird World

Yowza! It's mating/nesting season in bird world. What a noisy lot of activity in the backyard on this seventy-five degree February day in Georgia.  Chase games, male bravado, territory claims, and mating connections. One could almost spin around blindfolded and point, to choose what to write about.

Today I choose a sudden loud persistent eruption coming from a big sloppy nest in the high crook of a tree branch in the way-back part of the yard. From a distance, I could see and hear many small birds flying around the nest in a fury of righteous indignation and effusive scolding.  I approached slowly to see what I could see. There were at least a dozen birds and three species circling the nest and flitting in and out of the surrounding bare branches (still too early for leaves). Tufted titmice, white-breasted nuthatches, and chickadees, the highest percentage of these being titmice. Eventually, they quieted and flew away, leaving me wondering what happened. I went back later with a camera for a shot of the nest.

Not sure, but looks like a squirrel's nest to me. Why the attention from so many small birds?

I will never know the reason for the kerfuffle in a nest way too big for any of those tiny species, but one thing I have learned from previous observations. Whenever such outrageous scolding erupts in bird world, it is not without cause. Somebody had invaded somebody else's rights, and the victim had called for help. In the society of the backyard, it appeared to be the equivalent of a military response to a great social injustice, minus a newspaper account to inform us of the details. In the silent and mysterious aftermath I can only hope the little guys won. dkm

Birdly Bird

Big excitement in the limited birding world of this backyard spectator. A single wood thrush. First sighting ever. December 9, 2010, 8:30am. Temperature below freezing, in the 20s. Seems late for migrating. Staying here for the winter? Cinnamon brown head, plainer brown back, distinctively spotted breast, round fat body, long straight beak, pretty pink feet. Foraging for sunflower seeds on the deck floor beneath the feeder. Stayed a long time, hopping around, showing herself at all angles, flipping oak leaves around, unaware of my presence, just four feet away on the other side of the glass. She held me captive for the duration of her visit. An excellent and birdly bird.

8:30-9:00 seems to be the current peak time for coming to the feeder. Other birds at feeder this morning between 8:30 & 9:00: male and female cardinals, house finches, carolina chickadees, tufted titmice, brown-headed nuthatches, whitebreasted nuthatches, my bluebirds (calloo callay), downy woodpeckers, a single female towhee. dkm