I haven’t written about my birds in a long time. That’s probably because before this year, no bird has nested on my porch1. This year, though, a mama robin moved in. I love to watch the whole process, so I don’t disturb the nests or otherwise interfere with the nesting process. I have no idea what the scientific terms for all of this are2, but she’s nesting and raising babies so there ya go.
Anyway, this robin pair raised two broods already. It was fun watching mama make the nest (or maybe they both do?) and then lay on the eggs. Then watching the babies finally peeking over top. Finally, the fat little babies hopping off the edge of the nest and crashing into a green chair we have on the porch. They were so cute.
With her first brood, mama was nervous whenever I came out on the porch. I sit on the porch a lot so after a while she’d actually hang around a while after I set in my chair. She’d give me the stink eye, burrow a little into her nest and the first time I made a sound, she’d take off. Then she’d set on the fence and her mate would perch in the tree, squawking at me to get the hell away from their territory. When the babies hatched, the pair seemed too busy to care if I was there. They had babies to feed. At night, mama would bed down on her babies and pretend I wasn’t there. I think she thought I couldn’t see her. As long as I didn’t look in her general direction she was ok. By the time the babies flew the coop, she was comfortable enough with me to sit in the nest while I sat in my chair. I just didn’t look at her.
A week after the babies took off, mama came back. I was sitting in my spot on the porch and heard her fluttering in the old nest. I looked up and she was doing some kind of crazy bird dance. I’ve never seen this behavior before, so I very stealthily watched her. She was bringing in mud and smoothing it around the inside of the nest. Aha! This was the first time I’ve ever seen a bird actually fortifying a nest. Awesome sauce! It was funny, though, because she was basically building a new nest on top of the old one. She’d go get some dead grass and then bring some mud, then she’d do her dance. I think she was starting to trust me a little bit more, because she didn’t seem to care even when I was staring at her. A couple of days later I peeked and, sure enough, there were little blue eggs in there.
This brood was really used to me when they finally decided to hit the green chair3. The first set would hunker down in the nest when I came out. The second set didn’t give a fig whether I was there or not. They’d peek and squawk at me like I was supposed to be part of their little lives. Mama would still take off if I looked at her too long, but otherwise ignored me. Her and daddy brought the worms in shifts, the babies got too fat for their nest and so it went.
Well, when this brood took off I thought that was all she wrote. So, I took the nest down. There were nasty little bugs in it so I flung it over the fence4. I clean up the corner and spray it down with bug killer. I figured she’d have a nice little spot next season. Little did I know that mama is not done having babies.
I was sitting here the day before yesterday and she comes flying in. She set up on the pillar and looked around. I never knew that birds could actually look bewildered, but they sure can. She flew away. Oops. I thought maybe she was going to find somewhere else to go. Nope. She comes back a little while later and looks around some more. I think she was cussing me out, but I’m not really sure because I don’t speak her language. She did that all day Thursday and then she seemed to disappear yesterday. I’ve been keeping an eye out because I find this whole thing incredibly fascinating. She didn’t do anything but come, stand on the pillar for a bit and then fly off. I thought about putting the old nest back, but got over that. I figured she knew what she was going to do and I wasn’t touching that fucking nest.
This morning I get up and come out to have my coffee. Don’t you know that mama had started building a new nest on top of that pillar? Yep, she’d been busy at dawn, I’m sure, and she was not going to find a new spot for her babies. As I was getting ready for Lil’lady’s birthday party, mama robin was bringing in grass and mud. Throughout the day, she was slowly making progress and making a mess in the corner of my porch with debris that wasn’t quite making the final cut for the new nest. As I write this she’s sitting above me doing her dance- doing some kind of crazy thing with her wings and flapping her butt all over the place.
I’m glad, too. I know we’re not supposed to let birds nest on our porch, but I love watching them. I love the whole process and knowing that the babies are safer here than in a tree. And I love watching them go from ugly little monsters to fat, spotted fledglings. I’ve actually learned a lot about robins from this pair nesting so close to my spot on the porch and that’s worth the hassle of the after-season cleanup. I can’t wait to meet the new brood.
*The picture above is of the second brood right before they took flight. I think I could’ve gotten closer for a better picture, but I try not to bother them at all (aside from my presence out here).
- We used to have robins and doves nesting at our old house. [↩]
- I can look, I know, but I’d rather not turn to the internet for this. [↩]
- Which was on their way to the porch banister and off into the yard, by the way. They just all seem to end up in that chair for a couple of minutes after their first flight. [↩]
- The neighbors won’t care, I’m sure. [↩]
Ohio: The Nation’s Dumping Ground
For years, Ohio has accepted out-of-state waste in our landfills. We were, at one point, getting less of it, but that’s changing now that Kasich has decided money is more important than our environment and health. My hometown paper reported that Ohio is now accepting waste water disposal from out-of-state gas drilling operations. According to the article in that paper:
At the bottom of that little tidbit is a link to the original article in the Columbus Dispatch, from where they summarized their misleading information. What does the Dispatch report?:
Pennsylvania is so concerned with the hazardous materials used to do the fracturing and that are created by the fracturing that they are no longer disposing of the material in their own state. There is such a danger to the citizens of Pennsylvania that the chemicals can’t be allowed to remain in that state. So, they bring the chemicals here and are dumping them into our environment.
You don’t read that in our hometown, Republican-run paper though. On the same page as this information are links to articles in favor of drilling in our county. The gas companies are coming in and renting hotel rooms and tipping waitresses. This, according to the Times-Reporter, is a boon for our county. There is no mention of what this will do to our ground water, our lakes or our citizens. There is no mention of the fact that these gas companies will rape our countryside, lie to the people who own the land and then get the hell out of dodge when they can’t do anymore damage. Nope. It’s a
boonboom.On the article about how awesome the drilling will be for local businesses, some poor soul said this:
Exactly.
It’s funny, though, because their isn’t a sudden boom in jobs in this area. Not even hotel and waitressing jobs. There aren’t any new businesses starting up around this influx of gas drilling and/or dumping. But it’s been great for, well, someone.
Kasich has opened up our state parks for this drilling and has invited out-of-state waste to be dumped here. We’re even more friendly to environmental pollution now. You know, I was considering moving somewhere close to Pittsburgh (because I hear that’s an awesome city) and now I’m thinking more about it. I mean, sure it’s still in the mountains, but they’re shipping their waste to my back yard, so it’s got to be a better environment.
I want to thank Ohioans who were most likely to vote against Kasich and his evil empire for staying home last November. Without your apathy, this monster wouldn’t be sitting in the governor’s mansion right now and his teabaggers wouldn’t have control of the statehouse. If Strickland would have won, it’s quite possible we would have told Pennsylvania to fuck off when they asked to inject their pollution in our ground. It’s a good thing Obama made you mad enough to sit home. You’re soo showing him what’s what. I mean, who cares if your children are going to have to clean up this mess or head to cleaner pastures, right? Good for you for showing those assholes in the federal government you’re not going to stand for having your fee-fees hurt..
When I was a child, I used to go visit my aunt’s farm, which was partially strip mined in the 60s and 70s. The strip mining company “reclaimed” the land by planting evergreen trees around her property and aerating the ponds left from the digging. But they left most of the destroyed land bare and it was dangerous for us to play in the old mining areas. We couldn’t swim in the pond because it was poisonous and the creek water had this crazy, oily film on it. I remember thinking it was interesting because it was so colorful– like a rainbow. I used to sneak under the pine trees to dig through the slate for the bigger pieces so I could paint on them. I had to be careful because it would cut my feet and I’d get in trouble for going over there. When I was young, as a child visiting from the big city of Columbus, that was neat. Now I know better. Now they’re remining parts of the county, creating more hazardous conditions for children, and drilling more so the water isn’t safe to swim in. Back then my aunt had to ship drinking water in because it wasn’t safe to drink from the tap. They still don’t drink from it, but I think it may be more habit than necessity at this point. I asked her if she was going to allow the gas company to come drill on her land (which is rich with it):
“Over my dead body.”
She hasn’t forgotten, but it seems like everyone else has.