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August 01, 2002 - Two winged mysteries unraveledThe Suffolk Times • August 1, 2002 ZtWo winged m- ysteries MNMMMM� unraveled This mound nest was found in an attic, where it appears the only way to get In was through the louver you see. Who made the nest was a mystery until someone got up there and emptied out all the debris. FOCUS ON NATURE by Paul Stoutenburgh I HAD TWO VERY INTERESTING tele- phone calls this week. One you won't believe. The other you will chuckle over. Let's take the chuckling one first. A call came from a friend who said he had a strange bird calling in the back of his house. He had lived there for 24 years and had never heard anything like it before. He said it was almost tropical, something like a parrot, could I come over and help identify it. It didn't take me long to pick up my recorder and binoculars and I was off. We met at the back of his house where, right on schedule, the mystery bird performed beautifully with its raucous call. I had never heard anything quite like it. It was easy to hear the direc- tion the call came from. It was in the corner of a deep woods that was engulfed in catbrier, poison ivy, Virginia creeper and other impene- trable greenery. We had to see what it was! So we walked around the block and approached the sound from a different angle. We soon came into an opening where there was a lovely lit- tle vineyard. We stood there and could hear the call almost on top of us. Both of us had our binoculars and scanned the trees, looking as hard as we could to find the source of this loud and boisterous call. Search as we would, we couldn't find a trace of the mysterious caller. Then, as we moved around, we saw ings that inspectors took t or. When We spoke to a nuisance wildlife the inspector went to the attic he controller who takes raccoons from couldn't believe what he saw. There attics and traps opossums and birds on the rafters was a mound of grass- that get into buildings and that sort of es, mostly small pieces of phragmites, thing. He said he had removed a large that tall plume grass that grows in starling's nest from an attic that filled wet places. The mound was at least a 42- gallon garbage bag. That's pretty four to five feet in diameter and big, but it was hard for me to imagine equal in height. The material had a small starling building a nest this been put in through the louver and big. If it was done by a starling then it built up by some unknown animal or must have been a frustrated starling bird we couldn't imagine. that thought it was just filling a small a little plastic box that said `Bird They took pictures of it and in hole in the louver for its nest and it Eliminator" on it. What was this all looking at it, it looks like a neatly would soon fill up. When it didn't, he about? It had some wires running built muskrat house. Now, muskrats evidently just kept at it, filling and fill - from it, so we followed them to a don't build in people's attics. They ing, creatin the pile you see in the microphone on a stake to one side. build in marshes. I picture. Could this be our mysteri- scratched my head and Search as Stop the presses! we While we were in the ous caller? Sure enough, as tried to figure out what it we stood alongside it, it could be. The only large would, we process of sending Focus came on louder than ever, nest builder that I knew couldn't find a on Nature by e-mail to scaring us half to death. I guess it would do quite a was a monk parakeet, a the Suffolk Times, we greenish, crow -size bird trace of the received a call saying that job of scaring the birds as that has escaped and is mysterious the mound nest was being well. It certainly scared us. now living in the wild. It caller. cleaned up and were we We looked at each other builds a nest two or three interested in being there? and burst out laughing. feet in diameter in a tree. You bet we were! Off we We'd been taken. Here we were It is a colonial nester, whic means went, camera in hand. Here is what thinking we had some rare bird from that other parakeets nest in with it. we found: South America and all it turned out But no one had ever seen a green Two men were moving 60- gallon to be was an electronic device to parrot around and the books don't garbage containers of dried phrag- scare birds away. I must say it did speak of parakeets building inside of mites from the attic to a pickup until sound like a parrot of some sort. buildings, so we threw that idea out. they filled up the truck. The owners of Parrots do escape into the wild, so I read up on pack rats, which are the house speculated that over 700 naturally we thought that we were rats that we find out west. They were gallons of debris were carried out of going to see a real, live parrot. All we given the name pack rat because they the attic. got was a view of a microphone. build a nest out of material they In going through it all carefully, Walking away, if my friend had a tail, gather from around the area. It can looking for clues as to who had spent it would have been between his legs. be sticks, grass or pieces of paper or all this time and energy, they were He had been fooled and I was equal- cloth, shiny buttons, etc. Anything able to find an actual nest about six y drawn into the mysterious sound in they find they put in the nest and inches by six inches in size and also is back yard. It was a fun thing and they add to these nests year after three light blue eggs. We had a we'll chuckle about it for days to year. Could it be a pack rat? And if it Palmer Fieldbook of Natural History come. was, why did it only use these short with us, and in checking we found the Mysterious mound pieces of phragmites and not other debris that pack rats are noted for? following: Starling: "Nest a large bulky struc- My second call came from a lady I called Larry Penny, who heads the ture built of straw, grass and twigs who was selling her parents' home natural resource department in East lined with feathers and other soft and in the process of selling, the fam- Hamptcn Town to see if he had ever stuff. Placed in a bird house, cavity in' ily had the house inspected to see seen or heard of large nests in attics. a tree or under eaves of a house.... that it was structurally in good shape His thoughts ran along the same line Eggs — pale blue or whitish — and and didn't have termites and all those as mine: monk parakeet, pack rat. He glossy ... Size —1 115 inches x 9/10 was fascinated with the idea and inch." wanted to know exactly what it was This sounds like the answer to our when we found out. But the finding mystery mound. What a fun mystery out would have to wait until someone it turned out to be. eot un there to clean it out.