More "Birding in the Backyard" Entries

We have covered the Cardinals, we have followed “Jenny” wren, and now with only one day remaining before I must leave this idyllic world of all-play, all the time, I want to share just a few other back yard birding events that have so entertained Elena and I over the weeks.

One is being the main provider of soft yarn for what is a growing group of nesting robins and mockingbirds. We started putting string out about a week ago when I noticed a robin tugging resolutely at a clothesline and getting nowhere. Obviously nesting had begun and she was looking for material. Well I am such an Italian at heart, if I think they are hungry I instantly set out more food, if I see they need something like string, I dash to Wal-Mart and buy a cheap skein of yarn and begin providing it.

This turned out to be such a hit as far as keeping an 18-month-old entertained that we have done it daily. We cut foot long lengths of soft, sage green yarn and drape it over nearby branches and then see who comes to take it. Well, we began last week, and to make this educational, we always cut 10 pieces, counted them out, then counted out how many they took and how many remained. Delight comes in seeing a bird actually make off with one. Amazingly, as the word has obviously spread in the bird world that a Home Depot for nest building has opened up in our yard, what began as perhaps 10 a day disappearing, yesterday jumped up to 43 pieces of yarn being removed from the bushes! Incredible! So what this tells me is that, either a pamphlet has gone out to the bird world advertising our yard, or that nesting season has really picked up, at least among robins and mockingbirds for they are the ones we have seen taking them. Many disappear when we aren’t looking. But what fun! Anyone can do this. Once nesting begins in your area, just snip and drape the yarn and see what happens. I used sage green because I was thinking it would be tastefully invisible in the trees.

If you are doing this with young children, then the counting becomes a wonderful way to teach, not just counting, but subtraction as we kept seeing how many pieces remained and how many were gone. I must convince my daughter to keep this up in my absence, at least until the nesting season is over. Oh, and here is a wild thing that happened, when I went out on the patio after putting her down for a nap, a part of a grass nest was on the table! Go figure! Was a bird making a trade? Was her nest all yarn now and no need for this grass or was it a token of thanks? Really, there was no place it could have blown down from. This shall remain a mystery but a delight to Elena who has it in a little plastic bucket now.

Well, I seem to have done it again, gone on so long about these nests that I will have to write and yet another entry about the many, more than, “four and twenty blackbirds” who come each night to sleep in the neighbors bamboo patch. One more nap, one more blog entry!