War has been waged and I am just about as angry as I can be. We got up about 8:00 this morning and when I looked out I knew something was going on at the chickadee house. I thought it was perhaps fledging day because the parent birds were in and out of the house and down on the ground and on the perch and in the tree. But in awhile they flew up into the tree and didn't come back for awhile, so I went ahead and poured my coffee and had breakfast.
When I came back to check on them I saw house sparrows carrying nesting material into the house!!!!! So I went out to drive them away and almost stepped on a baby chickadee right outside my back door! I knew immediately what had happened and went out to yank the nesting material that was hanging out the portal of the house and check to see what the sparrows had done. Fortunately I was watching where I walked because there on the ground below the bird house were two more babies! Damned sparrows! I picked up the two from the ground and put them back in the house, and Roy came along with the one from the deck which was also still alive. I was afraid the parents would abandon them after we had handled them, but thank goodness now I see them bringing food to them again. Oh, and when we opened the house after we put the babies back in, Roy said he saw a fourth. I found another one farther away from the nest on the ground but it was dead. I'm sure there were six eggs to begin with so there may be another one lying dead in the yard, I'm not sure.
I tell you, there is no terrorist of the bird world like these damned sparrows! If there had been bluebirds in the house, the parent birds would have been feisty enough to fight them off maybe, but the chickadees are just too small.
Well, I'm having to keep one eye on the bird house while I'm writing this because the invaders keep trying to get back in the house. I just hope the remaining babies survive all this. Forgive my expletives, but I'm just too upset to worry about it.
1 week ago
6 comments:
Oh, nooooo.... that is awful Mary. How sad.. and I had no idea that sparrows would be that mean. I always thought it would be the much larger birds that would be a problem. Darn them and darn the way nature works some days....
I am usually throwing boots and brooms at crows and magpies bothering the robins nest in my spruce tree...
I hope your efforts pay off and the parents get to raise the little chickadees.... they are such sweet little guys....
O'd cuss too if I went thru what you did today. I also can not just sit back and let "nature" take it's course, Mike says I try to create a Disney form of nature, but I just can't help it. I hope you and the chickadees win the battle.
Oh Mary I can understand the way you feel. We have the same problem with magpies that raid the nests of little birds. Last week I saw the black bird coming in and out of a bush nearby and knew they had a nest there. Then my hubby said that he saw a magpie nearby which he shooed away. I haven't seen much activity in that bush since then. I only hope the chicks or the eggs have not been raided. I hate it when that happens. But I guess that is nature.
I hope your chickadees make it through till they can fly away.
I know too well what those dang sparrows can do. A couple of years ago, 2 Red-bellied Woodpeckers built a nest in our tree. Took them weeks to excavate! Then the sparrows came and Starlings.
That is horrible! I would be feeling exactely the same way if I was in your shoes.
I wouldn't be able to stand by and watch that happen either.
I constantly have butcher birds hasseling my little budgies at the window trying to get in at them, and I have to chase them off.
Oh I do hope your little bird babies make it through.
OMG, Mary....thank goodness you and your hubby were there to rescue them. I had no idea that sparrows were like that....sometimes, nature can be so cruel. :(
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