OF NESTS, HERONS AND COWBIRDS

There is a lot of life around here this spring!  We are usually gone for these weeks and we and miss it, but this year we feel like we are right in the middle of everything!  

FOUR great-blue herons flew overhead this morning as I was walking the dog.
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Yesterday afternoon on our walk, I had just crossed the brook on Moore Road and there was this VERY CLOSE, and VERY LOUD, shrieking "GRAAACK", right over my shoulder!  I am not particularly jumpy, but I jumped at this!  My first thought was, "Fisher in the tree?"  But it was a great-blue heron chasing a red-tailed hawk!!!  I wonder if there are nests back in those wetlands and the hawk was after the heron nestlings!  Gotta check it out. 
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The house wrens are very busy moving more twigs into the nest box.  I was puzzled because it also seemed that there was a fledgling around, asking for food (smaller than the adults, some fuzzy down-like feathers, inside of mouth still a bit red).  I did some research and read that house wrens frequently have more than one clutch and sometimes while dad house wren is feeding the fledglings, mom runs off with another male!  Then dad finds another mate and they refurbish the nest.  I guess this could be the scenario... they haven't confided in me.

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 AND, on Sunday we spotted a grey catbird nest in the Rhododendron bush right under our window - perfect viewing place!  Very hidden - can you find the nest in the bush below??

(It is right smack in the middle of the bush, 

just below and left of the yellow leaf.)

Monday morning we spotted one, gorgeous blue egg!  

Tuesday morning, I checked as soon as it was light enough so that I could see into the nest and there were two eggs, but one was blueish-white with brown spots!  A brown-headed cowbird egg.  We have seen a lot of cowbird activity around here this fall.

I checked again around 6:30 and there was another blue egg - you can see that it is still damp from just being laid!  The nest is very deep and it is hard to see any eggs that are close to the edge - I believe the other blue one is just out of sight, perhaps behind that leaf.

Grey Cat-bird egg (left) and Brown-headed Cowbird egg

The catbirds are among the birds who can tell when there is an egg that isn't their own and by later in the morning, the cowbird egg was no longer visible.   Most likely mama catbird rolled it out of the nest.  We couldn't find it on the ground, but on the other hand, the way the ticks are this year, we were NOT interested in crawling around under the bush! 

This morning (Wednesday), by 7:30 there were three blue eggs and no sign of the cowbird egg.  

For those of you who don't know, brown-headed cowbirds always drop their eggs in other bird's nests (possibly up to 30 from one female in a season).  The cowbird usually hatches before the host bird's eggs and is often bigger than the host bird nestlings, so it claims more food.  Often the host bird's nestlings don't thrive. 

But this mama catbird is quite happy on her nest!

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Our robins are getting ready to fledge - should be this weekend!

 Otherwise, not much going on around here...