The Intruder

When I started this post it was titled “Miracles of Spring.” Then it progressed to “The Eviction,” Now “The Opportunists” seems more apropos.

              The town where I live has a population of about 1600, but it is designated a village, because it isn’t incorporated. Considered rural, in appearance it’s suburban, with neat patches of green lawn around brick and frame houses. Occupying only a few acres of houses and pavement, It’s home to many kinds of animals. The Big Muddy River, a tributary of the Mississippi runs about a mile southeast of my house. We sometimes get visits from opossum, skunk, and raccoon. I often hear the coyotes, and in spring their pups, howling down by the river. I was surprised to learn they live in this area. I was used to their ubiquitous presence in southwest Oklahoma. It wasn’t uncommon for one to cross my path on the way home from some evening event, or see one howling at the moon out on my grandparents’ farm. Here, they stay out of sight in the woods, and you know they’re around only by their mournful howls, which never fail to make me homesick. With the increased urbanization of our world, many species, especially coyote, squirrel, deer, and more than a few birds have become very well adapted to our urban ways.

              In writing, it is tempting to anthropomorphize animals and birds. Anthropologists and sociologists frown on it, but Walt Disney built an empire by doing so. About mid-May, I noticed three different sets of birds nesting in our neighborhood.

Across the street is a church with a two-story tall sanctuary. In each corner of the north wall, about fifty feet apart, is a curved metal drainpipe running down from the eave to the gutter. About fifteen feet away, on the edge of the street is a utility pole, with the requisite accumulation of telephone, electric, and heaven-only-knows-what-else wires. The power company placed some kind of black tubular contraption over the connectors which lead to the utility pole, possibly to discourage the squirrels, or maybe to fend off lightning strikes.

In the curve of the east drainpipe, where the morning sun shines, a pair of American Robins built their nest. Neat and round, it snuggled perfectly up against the sanctuary wall, held securely in place by the downspout. How exciting. The robin, harbinger of spring in some areas, but a year around resident here on the Mississippi flood plain, was welcomed for its cheerful songs and not begrudged the earthworms and bugs it could catch.

Just opposite in the curve of the west drainpipe, where the west sun beats down, a family of common House Sparrows moved in. Messy nest builders, these noisy, chattering birds, imported from England for their ability to catch caterpillars which harm shade trees, are now considered invasive, because our native birds can’t evolve fast enough to compete. Nevertheless, they are welcome for their consumption of small weed seeds, of which they eat far more than they do caterpillars.

In the black tubes on the electric lines, a pair of common Grackles moved in. Native to southern Illinois, they have a pretty brown iridescence to their black feathers, but are even noisier in their social habits than the sparrows. The local farmers consider them thieves for the grain they eat, but they don’t attack a growing ear of corn. Being opportunistic in nature, they prefer to feast on the many kernels left behind after the big corn combines reap in the fall. During spring and summer, they eat far more weed seeds than the tiny sparrows.

For several days, we sat on the front deck, observing the nesting activities of these three species of birds, residing in such close contact. They each minded their own business, none bothering the other, seeming to co-exist in happy harmony. Then the rains came. We had eight straight days of pouring, relentless rain. The Big Muddy was overflowing its banks. Around here, gutters and downspouts get easily clogged from the winged seeds of the silver leafed maple. There are more trees on the east side of the church than the west, so that gutter was the most clogged. Rainwater overflowed and gushed within inches of the curve in the downspout, splattering huge drops near the robins’ nest. We couldn’t tell for sure, but we suspected the robins had hatchlings. They were busy flying through the rain with bugs and worms in their mouths, constantly cleaning debris from the nest, and during the harshest of the downpours, covering the nest with outspread wings. Robins may raise two or three broods each spring, but they abandon the nest and build anew for each brood.

During the rains, my daughter, grandson, and I often huddled on the front deck to ease our cabin fever, watching, helpless in the face of this struggle for life, watching both parents growing thinner with each passing day. Helpless to aid in their battle, we often made remarks like, “I can just hear Mama Robin now. ‘I told you we shouldn’t have built here. I’m going to pick out the next nest site. Now, get out there and find more bugs while I keep this rain out.’” In the meantime, the feckless sparrows and opportunistic grackles, while not bothering the robins in any way, used breaks in the rain to gather the burgeoning crop of dandelion, henbit, and clover seeds.

At last, the rains stopped. There were indeed hatchlings in the robin nest, and they were rapidly becoming fledglings. For a couple of days, we’d see three little heads popped up, mouths wide open, waiting for mom or pop to bring home a juicy bug or worm. The parent birds were busier than ever, flying incessantly to feed the hungry mouths. Then came the first warm, sunny day and something happened. The first fledgling hopped out onto the curve of the downspout while mama and papa were gone. It flapped and fluttered and grew brave enough to fly all the way to the ground. It hopped along the church’s gravel parking lot all the way to the back wall and around into the grass behind. We were concerned, because it never reappeared. We feared it had fallen prey to one of three stray cats who occasionally show up around here. They are either the pets of thoughtless owners or feral, and very clever about evading county animal control patrols.

Something about the appearance of that first fledgling bothered me. It didn’t look like a baby robin, but I couldn’t identify it. I speculated about intruder origins. My daughter doubted that, but I was still sure something wasn’t kosher. Since my Audubon bird book is packed away for an anticipated move, I went to the ever helpful internet. Sure enough, it wasn’t a baby robin. It was a baby Brown-headed Cowbird. Considered by some naturalists to be a parasite, by others simply an opportunist, the cowbird lays its eggs in other birds’ nests and takes off, allowing the foster parents to do the hard work of rearing their young, often at the expense of the host bird’s own nestlings. It is a bird whose nomadic lifestyle originated on the western plains where millions of insect-infested buffalo once roamed. It really only became a problem bird when white settlers killed off the buffalo herds.

We’ll never know if mama and papa Robin had more than two eggs in their clutch. They can lay up to five. Whether the fledgling cowbird was consumed by a cat or managed to fly off and find a group of cowbirds to hang out with will never be known, but for a several days we watched the robins teach their two fledglings to fly and forage. Mama actually pushed the most reluctant fledgling out with her wing and made it fly. Then they were gone, abandoning the nest forever. My grandson remarked, “She probably told him she was never coming back to this lousy, rainy neighborhood.” In actuality, we could hear them singing with others of their kind in the trees to the east of the church, probably their roosting area, and they may or may not have built another nest in one of the tall trees, but they’re still in the neighborhood. In fact, I’ve seen papa feasting on my clover seeds and growing fat. If they have time, perhaps they’ll raise another brood. The only reason they’re not too welcome around here is that they are a key host for West Nile Virus. Quick, grab the Deep Woods Off!

 Once the robins were gone, the sparrows moved in. They have worked for days, and now you can no longer see the neat, round robin’s nest hidden within the messy, burgeoning sprawl of the sparrow nest with many fronds of grass and straw sticking out in wild disarray. They are busing coming and going. Of course, one of us had to remark, “There goes the neighborhood.”

The grackles and sparrows, now in greater proximity, continue to co-exist, but with occasional squabbles. Apparently, the grackles didn’t mind robins for neighbors, but they’d prefer the sparrows were still fifty feet away.

Yesterday morning I sat on the deck, nursing my treasured cup of steaming coffee in the early sunshine. A black-capped chickadee, who may have been one of several who regularly visit our winter feeder, landed on the deck railing. When he spotted me he took off. I was an intruder in his neighborhood, as much as the sparrows were to the grackles.