I do at least one autumnal task daily. Yesterday switched out the pictures in the bathroom from birds/deer/flowers to fungi/dragonflies/mammals. Today I had decided to finish up cleaning out the bird houses. I'd started back in August figuring that all of the birds would have by then finished raising their first or second broods of the season. The youngsters needed to be strong enough to be migrating by September or at least strong enough to endure our cold winters. I was wrong. The birdhouse nearest Haven held a fledgling house sparrow. While I don't like house sparrows and have no problems removing their eggs. live fledglings are another matter. I stopped cleaning out the houses until today. They were all empty now. On the wooden ones, I open the door and let it hang open. The winter winds will blast it clean. The plastic houses I bring back to store overwinter. The bottom of one of the plastic houses was splintered and looked like it would fall out. Fortunately Phil is here so asked him if he'd fashion another base for it. Sheila was curious why I didn't clean the plastic houses and just rehang them so they'd be ready for next year. Explained I did that the first year and found a fat mouse that had made it his winter residence. Once was enough for a surprise like that. Could tell I didn't have any blue birds use them again this year but plenty of tree swallow activity.
No comments:
Post a Comment