OAImages Blog

I never did earn the Bird Study merit badge when a Scout.   At least to me, it’s becoming obvious why.

Thursday evening I was standing undereath the gazebo on my deck just after a thunderstorm was passing by.   I was sitting there on the phone with a friend, talking about a few things.    On a table I have a couple of potted plants.   I reached into one to see if it needed watering, since the rain did not hit it.   As I reach into the plant something flew out, hit me in the chest and flew away.   It surprised me.

I looked in and saw some grass arrayed in there.   Looking further I realized it was a nest and spied three small eggs.   Ubeknownst to me a pair of house finches have taken up residence there.  I really wasn’t expecting that, especially since I was sitting not three feet away from the nest for about 20 minute, with the adult bird on the nest the whole time.

This is at least the fifth bird’s nest right around my home this year.   I had two different pairs of finches nesting in ferns on my front porch, but at different times.   I had a robin’s nest in a shrub outside my office window.  I may have accidentally doomed the young with a sneeze that induced panic causing them to flee the nest a bit too early.   I also had a pair of woodpeckers in a large maple in my front yard.   Add to this the rabbits and chipmunks that like to graze in my yard and have annoyed me with their attack on some of my roses and irises, and I can begin to understand why my cat is desperate to be outside!

While I’m going on about birds, here is a neckerchief slide I had been promising to scan for Bill Mulrenin for quite some time now.  I found it while trying to gather together some patches.   It displays the lodge totem, the common tern, in front of a yellow arrow and all carved in wood.

I guess sending this to him was my “good tern” for the day?