Wild Kingdom

Spring is here and birds are building nests all over our backyard.

First off, we had a wood dove build a "nest" on the platform of the kid's swingset. I put nest in quotes because it looked like the bird equivalent of spilling a container of Tinkertoys. There was no structure to speak of, just a bunch of twigs surrounding two eggs. They both hatched out but only one made it. The survivor learned to fly a week or two ago and the "nest" cleaned itself up on a recent windy day. Unfortunately cleaning up the non-survivor required some bleach and a scrub brush.

Now we've got two house wrens that have built nests - one on the front porch and one under the canopy in the back yard. I can hardly wait for the eggs - six in all - to hatch so the little chicks can get on with the whole Learning To Fly business. Then I can walk around my house without getting swooped by nervous mother birds who think I'm going to Get Them.

I gotta buy some rubber snakes for next spring.