For the birds! (and watchers) #phenology

Today we repaired the bluebird house that the bear attacked earlier this year. One day soon, when we get our post hole digger back from the folks that borrowed it, we'll mount it on the 8 foot 4" X 4" we bought and park the 4 X in a hole in the ground near the back yard's forsythia and lilac bushes. (Speaking of which, the lilacs in front of the house finally started blooming, but none of the 3 forsythias produced any flowers this year. It's been that kind of Spring.)

eastern bluebird male

Photo by J. Harrington

Did you know Minnesota has a bluebird recovery program? If we did, we'd forgotten. Here's a link to their top ten tips for successful bluebirding. We will do our best to follow these. In years past, we've avoided checking our boxes during nesting season for fear of triggering nest abandonment. Once again we've served as an example of how a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Then again, while poking about the internet for information on eastern bluebirds, we came across the Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas, which we've somehow missed in all the time we've lived in Minnesota and had internet access (many years for each).

November: time to clean out the house for Winter

Photo by J. Harrington

We note that several resources on the placement of bluebird nesting boxes recommend half-inch steel pipes. In light of our experience this year with the bear, we believe s/he stood up and leaned on the 2" X 4" the box had been mounted on, snapping it off at the base. We suspect that a pipe would be equally susceptible to being bent by a hungry bear. That's why we're using a 4" X 4". We'll have to figure our some sort of baffle arrangement. We have been cleaning out the houses to prevent rodent nesting over Winter, so that's not going to change. What we hadn't known is that deer mice can carry the hantavirus. Amazing what you can learn f you really start to pay attention. (If you look carefully, there's a mouse in the upper-right corner of the nesting box pictured.)

Since we've posted about bluebirds from time to time, we've used Charles Bukowski's poem Bluebird several times. It's become almost a tradition. Here's a link to an animated version of that poem. Here's the poem:

Bluebird

by Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

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