Saturday, May 5, 2018

The Marge And Studley Show: What Now Edition

Well, you just never know, and this whole eight-year enterprise in chickadee rentals has been one long exercise in just never knowing. Through it all, our admiration of chickadees has only increased, along with our own humility and frailty in the face of adversity. This is life, and life has its ups and downs and sudden screeching halts to it.

It started with the bird box Dave built according to Google directions, with its dimensions exactly yea-by-yo, and its freakishly specific drop-depth, and its entry hole precisely one and a quarter inches, per spec. And when we scored authentic chickadees with it, we were pretty chuffed. After all, how many rotten tree cavities are there around here with those exact requirements? Could Nature even pretend to compete with the mad skills of Dave? Clearly we had elevated the housing stock in the area and we were prepared to be the very best chickadee landlords we could be.

Nuthatch Fiasco...
But it's been one thing after another. The first few years we achieved invisible chicks, judging by the activity and the cheeping and whatnot, but we had to take it on faith. Then one year everything got started on schedule and the nest was abandoned. That was followed by the Year of Dead Chicks and Punctured Eggs. Then there was the dreadful Nuthatch Fiasco of '16, the likes of which I hope never to see again. Those nuthatches were as earnest as they could be but nothing went right for them at all.

Which brings us to this year, when I have been terribly excited by the prospect of monitoring Marge and Studley whilst actually knowing which was Marge and which was Studley, because Studley has a bum left foot. And no sooner does Marge start putting her mattress together than they both go away. Instead there are wasps.

...of 2016
So I haul the box inside for a look and unscrew the top and there's a small active wasp nest hanging from the ceiling like a chandelier. Marge's mattress looks to be nearly done, but there's no Marge. The Windowsons like to eat bugs but wasps are too spicy. I scraped off the wasp nest and re-hung the box after waiting a day to befuddle the wasps. I also took down the hummingbird feeder in case that was attracting them. Ten seconds after I shut the window a wasp came back to the house.

And maybe he was just trying to figure out what happened to his nice sculpture and he'd go away and pout. But how to get Marge back? Staging? Hanging a little picture of Marge's grandma? Laying in some potpourri that smells like chocolate chip cookies?

Besides, what's next? A plague of parasites? Hordes of Huns in hawk suits? Interference from the neighbor's Wi-Fi? Will it turn out that the Mercury in Retrograde crap affects only gullible humans and chickadees?

Odds are Marge and Studley are already off looking for new digs. I wouldn't blame them. We had a working cascara tree when we first put up the house. Now it's ninety percent dead and the birds like that too, but there aren't many leaves left and the birdhouse gets a lot more sun. I'd already thought about hanging an umbrella above it. No one wants to try to hatch a poached egg. How much intervention do our little friends need?

When you make the perfect bird house you like to think you're providing something for the community, but that's just what you tell yourself. The chickadees will figure something out. We have the box one foot away from our window because we want to watch. We put out a seed feeder and hang suet because we want to watch. But birds can share diseases at a feeder. Beyond hosing cats and planting natives and leaving seed pods to ripen, maybe we shouldn't be doing anything at all.

But. We want to watch.

25 comments:

  1. The entry hole is 1 1/4 inches? How tiny are these little chickadees?
    I do hope Marg and Studley come back, the wasps must have been quite a surprise for them.

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    1. They're tiny but they look plumper. They turn into a bullet going into the hole though. I don't know how they unfold before they hit the back wall.

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  2. Aw... I'm sorry about Marge and Studley. I enjoyed hearing about them and will miss that. Please keep us posted if they -- or any other tenants -- move in.

    What's up with the wasps this year, anyway? Normally, none find their way into the house. But just yesterday, I had to escort 5 of them back out. I think that maybe they come in the back door as we are exiting or returning... sneaky buggers. There are always a couple hanging around the back door like a bunch of fangirls, apparently waiting for this opportunity.

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    1. Guess what? I evicted the wasps and Marge and Studley came back! Even brought in more of the mattress. We've had a few days of activity but I've yet to see them today. Fingers crossed.

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    2. OOooo... I'll keep all my available appendages crossed as well!

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  3. Maybe it was the location because you know how real estate is. How about building a whole suburb and see which one they like? My barn swallows are back a nd nesting furiously. They make a mess, but eat so many insects that I encourage their homesteading tendencies.

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  4. Last year was the first time in a long time that we didn't have cicada killer wasps nesting in our lawn. I think the larger local birds were feasting on them.

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  5. Our bluebirds hatched three babies, and they are now working on their second clutch. The new babies hang out at the bird feeder and beg Dad to feed them. We do like to watch!

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    1. You can get several clutches out of them, right? No one ever seems to do that in our birdhouse, but then again, it is the scene of much tragedy.

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  6. I’ll need to look this up. I believe the Bluebird projects throughout the South have been successful, so that’s a vote for intervention. Still, you just never know what the recipient will do with your gift. These things are overdetermined and nearly always astonishing. In 3rd Grade, my best ever teacher was leaving in June for a missionary year in Siam. I gave her a box of beautifully wrapped, luridly scented soaps shaped like crowns by the Prince Matchebelli company. She wrote me a thank-you note saying my soaps made the best toothpaste imaginable. I doubt this is relevant, but it did come to mind.

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    1. Dr. T. E. Musselman was credited with saving the Eastern bluebird with his Bluebird Trail of birdhouses. I don't know what to say about your soaps.

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  7. Sigh. I hope Marge and Studly have a successful year somewhere. But do understand your disappointment in losing the ring-side seat.

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  8. Oh, yes, we are voyeurs of the worst kind when it comes to birds. Or any other animals we don't get to see up close most of the time.

    I'm about to close down our bird feeder. There were four deer under it today, fighting for a taste. The blackbirds were WILD at them. High drama, tragicomic!

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    1. Yep. If they'd had any rotten tomatoes, they'd have been flinging them!

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  9. I’m sorry about your buckthorn because, among other things, it is a nearly perfect dye botanical. And I think this post is nearly perfect as well. There are many problems associated with our voyeuristic tendencies. Working at Lincoln Park Zoo? They defined my raison d’etre.

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    1. What color does it make? I've got a fresh batch of new seedlings coming up in its shade.

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    2. reds, oranges, greens. If your tree does come down you can sell ziplock baggies of the bark for 10.00 plus shipping each. Get a new woven rug. Lots of bark on a tree...

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  10. Yesterday a spectacular barn swallow flew into my father's living room through the open front door. In a panic, he tried to get through the glass -- big tall windows that do not open. I had a notebook in hand and slowly approached him, expecting to more or less shoo him towards the open front door, but to my surprise, he stopped fluttering and paused on the windowsill and seemed to be waiting for assistance.I was able to take him gently in hand and walk to the door and toss him back into the skies. Nothing to it. Except the unimaginable beauty of momentarily holding that creature in my hand.

    All of which is to say that our need to connect with other species, to provide for them, appreciate them, see them, help them, I think is what makes us human. In a good way. And when the connection feels like the creatures recognize us as helpers, well, it's just so wonderful. I'm so happy. Today I'm putting up the hummingbird feeders.

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    1. That is a wonderful experience that, I'm sad to say, I was unable to replicate with my bedroom bat.

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  11. The birders here take a bar of smelly soap and rub it on the ceiling of the bird house and they say it discourages wasps...just an idea.

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    1. Sounds like a good idea! I know I don't like smelly soap.

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