Wednesday, June 16, 2004

Baby Birds

A few weeks ago I shared that a house sparrow built her nest in the tool box in the garage. The two eggs hatched and Mr. and Mrs. Bird are busy feeding the little ones. We leave the garage door open from morning till night and try not to disturb them, but Ron is fascinated by them and gives us regular updates of their progress.

Ron's awareness of nesting birds led to another discovery. As Ron started to mow the far side of the pond, he startled a mallard hen into flight. He then checked the ground and found a nest with six eggs, so we have another bunch of baby birds to observe. Ducks scout our pond every spring for nest building, but soon decide to move on what with boys, dog, and muskrat; so it will be fun to have ducklings on the pond.

Several years ago, a couple of red-winged blackbirds built a nest in the cattails on shallow end of the pond and have come back every year since. I love these birds from my childhood. Recently I walked around the pond and was sent running by persistent divebombing RWBs. Another pair built a nest on the opposite side of the pond.

From all this activity, you would think our pond is larger and more remote than it is. Although it is only a dinky pond within 20 feet of the house, we encourage wildlife with cattails and other natural growth around the edge of the pond. And NO CHEMICALS. To keep a healthy supply of oxygen in the pond, we aerate it with an electric compressor and pump housed in Steve's workshop. We add a natural dye to help discourage algae. And our use of chemicals on the lawn is minimal to avoid run-off into the pond. It took some experimentation over several years to achieve effective, low-effort, wildlife-friendly pond maintenance, but it was worth the effort.

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