Dirty little birdy feet

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No.30
6/14/09
19:25

A couple months ago, a fat little brown bird started buzzing me every time I went into our garage. Airika says it's a phoebe, and I just have to take her word for it. I just thought the bird was kinda mean. Turns out, she'd built a nest in the rafters. It's a beautiful nest, very solidly constructed out of moss, grass sticks and even some string that she likely liberated from a Tilly turd. And unlike the retarded robins, who build their nests where any one-legged pygmy sloth can get to 'em, she built it in a place inaccessible to anyone without feathers, and actually pretty hard to approach even with feathers. To get to it, you have to navigate up, down and around my broken garage door, which must be like the Death Star trench run for birds. This is a shrewd move on the phoebe's part, because we have a murderous sharp-shinned hawk who's been lunching at out various feeders. And the hawk ain't getting into the garage.


The phoebe eventually dumped a few eggs, and two weeks ago I noticed a breathing gray mass of feathers. It was hard to tell how many chicks were in there, because they were piled on top of one another so tightly, I half expected to find a dead one at the bottom.


Not so. Last week five of them were scrambling along the rafters. Not yet flying, but too fat to fit in the nest. By Friday, they had taken flight, ping-ponging around the garage. They don't seem incredibly afraid of people, so we can get pretty close when the mother isn't around. By Sunday morning, they'd figured out how to get outside, and I was actually a little sad to not see their freaky bug-eyed faces staring at me from behind a beam or door. They did return that night, but I know it ain't gonna last. This shouldn't depress me, but it kinda does.


And while we're talking birds, meet Stick Bird. I built a chicken wire fence around a rock path I'd laid, and Stick Bird claimed one of the posts. When it came time to take the fence down, Stick Bird's stick remained. He spends all day either on his stick, serenading anyone who'll listen. At least when he's not harassing the bluebirds.


Plenty more photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/vangoat