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July 09, 1998 - The best nest8A • The Suffolk Times • July 9, 1998 The best nest How birds make themselves a `Home, Sweet Home' in the oddest of places One of the rewards of writing this nature column is the telephone calls I receive from my readers. The calls cover a wide variety of subjects and I thought it might be interesting to share some of them with you. I'm sure most of FOCUS you have your own story: a ON robin's nest under the porch eaves, a NATURE bluejay nest just by Paul outside the win- Stoutenbuilgh dow in your favorite ever- green and the list goes on. The ones I'm going to relate show just how clever and adaptable some birds are and it's this ability that gives these particular birds an advantage over all the others. Take, for instance, that aggressive bully, the European starling. Here's a bird that came into our country fewer than 100 years ago and has now settled in every state in the union, including Alaska. Starlings are opportunists of the first order. Take nest building. It's a cavity nester, which means it has to find a hole or building or something to place its nest in. Faced with this dilem- ma in a new country, the starling has become one of the most ingenious of all birds in locating a suitable nesting site around man's busy world. Just the other day someone called in about a starling nest he saw in a traffic light hanging over a busy highway. I've also seen where one had the ability to tuck a nest in behind a store sign right above one of our busiest malls. And, of course, to my dislike they find wood- pecker holes in trees and take them over, driving out the rightful owner just about ready to set up housekeeping. If there's an opening in a building, a board it can sneak behind, it will be there to start nest building. No wonder we see so many young starlings in small groups right now foraging here and there with their parents, who were so successful in rearing them right in our own back yards. Birds in the wren family are another example of persistence and adaptabili- ty. Two that are particularly noticeable because of their loud calls are the house wren and Carolina wren. Both are noisy singers. A characteristic of some of these wrens is their habit of building more than one nest. As a mat- ter of fact, I have watched the house wren bring sticks into two or three of my bird boxes and then use none of them. Years ago one shunned all but one nest, and that was in a clothespin bag that swung on the clothesline. I remember my mother wouldn't let any- one go near the line until the wren had fledged her young. Safe inside at night Another time a lady called and told of a Carolina wren that had built its bulky nest inside her garage. She was so concerned she kept the door open all day, letting the bird come and go, but closed it up after the bird had set- tled down for the night. That was fine with the wren, who waited until the door opened the next morning to start her feeding again. Another unusual nesting site a friend called up to tell me about was on his boat. Seems a mourning dove had built its stick nest on the stern of his boat, which was being readied for launch- ing. All through the weeks of scraping and painting, the dove paid little atten- tion to the activity going on and I'm happy to report the mother and young left after a very con- cerned but safe stay aboard the boat. Just this week my son called and told of house finches that had taken up quar- ters in a tree - removal truck. We went to see this unusual nest site on the job and sure enough, as the tree transporter rolled in with its maze of hydraulic lines, huge spade -like scoops and a full -grown tree on the back, we could hear the peeping sound of baby birds. Up on the rig in one of the arms of the digger was an opening and in it a house finch had built its nest. The owner, afraid the young might fall out when the huge spade was tipped up for transport, had laid duct tape partially across the hole so that the young wouldn't fall out. Then when he got back home he'd take the tape off and the parent birds would return to feed, just as if nothing had happened. To this date they are still doing well in between tree deliveries. I was told by another reader about birds that nested on the Orient -New London ferry. In port the parents flew back and forth feeding their young in the usual busy manner; then, when the ferry left the dock, there'd be a period of three or four hours before the ferry returned after which the patient par- ents would start feeding once more. Just goes to show how persistent and habit forming feeding can be. House finches love to build their home site and was sitting inside on her precious clutch of eggs. Needless to say, we found another basket. One of the most bizarre nesting sites we've seen was the nest of a killdeer built on the blacktop of the parking lot in back of the recreation center in Peconic. The killdeer, a type of plover, usually builds its ground nest in an open field where there is little vegetation. This is so the bird can easily see danger approaching, then, if necessary lure the intruder away with its broken wing act. It makes believe it is hurt and moves about, dragging its wing. The intruder seeing it's in difficulty, follows and Suffolk Times photo by Paul Stoutenburgh This mourning dove built Its nest on the stern of a boat In one of our local shipyards. Everyone managed to work around the bird until It fledged Its young. �cic Control x� The Sensible Solution Inc. Don't be a statistic, everyone is at risk. Protect your family, friends and pets from tick -borne diseases: Lyme Disease, Babesiosis, Ehrlichiosis. AV. PRODUCTS TESTED, PROVEN TO WORK AND ENDORSED BY AGRIBALANCE ORGANIC CONSULTANTS, SAG HARBOR k FREE ESTIMATES vR °: "If early symptoms of Lyme disease are not recognized and treated promptly. Infectious tick bites can lend to a lifetime of major medical problems. " >` Southampton Hospital years ORGANIC Over 10 ex rience m� SOLUTIONS Fu h n l UCt sect an nsur tl 6kANO mg, �S s g te Er>df E?!St E[l/f Southampton East Hampton Hampton Bays 287 -9700 324-9700 728 -8400 grass -woven nests in thick bushes and clusters of branches and so when they found last year's Christmas wreath still hanging on the door of a friend's home, it became the ideal spot for a nest. This leads to another story. Barbara and I had stopped at a roadside stand to buy a flowering basket. We looked and looked and finally decided on one, but then the owner came running over and said, "Oh no, you can't have that one! A bird is nesting in it." Sure enough, a finch had decided this was the ideal " Crulas our tsoys Haroor Fireworks Cruise M Sat. July, 18. N Call for info 289 -6899 LEAVES FROM VILLAGE PARK FRONT STREET, GREENPORT therefore is drawn away from the vul- nerable nest. Well, this killdeer found a place with little vegetation for sure; the parking lot. There was a little break in the blacktop and it was here she laid her eggs and sat on them. The town finally put a road barrier up around her to pro- tect her from the cars and people who were continually in the area. That reminds me of when 1 was teaching at Greenport High School and they had just acquired a small, rolling farm lot alongside the school. The idea was to grade it off and add it to the ath- letic field. Big earth movers and bull- dozers churned away all day leveling the ground. Then one of the drivers spotted a killdeer's nest and marked it off with stakes. The work kept on and the job was finished leaving this pinna- cle of untouched earth with its killdeer nest on top. It was something to see. Everything was leveled off except the spot that told of the kindheartedness of a very concerned worker. It just goes to show how much our wildlife can adapt to man's environ- ment, but I must be honest and say there's also a great deal of our bird and animal life that cannot adapt — it's the woodland birds, like the thrushes and warblers, etc.; it's the snakes and the turtles and the salamanders. These are the ones that are falling by the wayside as man takes over more and more the habitat that is so necessary for their sur- vival. Open space is their only salvation.