Robin close encounters

Robin family members pant on a hot day. Photo by Mark Gorges.

Close encounters of the robin kind

By Barb Gorges

            You could say that the robins in our backyard are benefitting from global warming this summer.

            After 32 years managing without it, Mark and I had air conditioning installed and the robins discovered it offered a good nesting location.

            We normally can keep things comfortable by closing windows before the outside temperatures get hotter than the inside, plus the basement stays chilly. But with warmer and sometimes smokier summers, it seemed like the right time to invest in heat pump technology, referred to as a mini-split. It also provides heat and can be hooked up to a solar electric system someday.

            The robins built their whole nest before we were aware. It is on top of the new conduit in the corner by the back door we don’t use much. With the roof overhang, it is well protected.

I’ve heard about robins building nests on porch lights and attacking anyone who goes in and out the associated door. Gardening takes us back and forth below this nest location, but neither robin parent divebombed us or the dog. Mark even put up our 8-foot stepladder once to take a photo and there were no complaints.

Every time I glanced at the nest when a parent was on it, incubating the eggs, staring at me, I’d apologize for another disruption.

Finally, the day came when I noticed, looking out the kitchen window, that one of the parents was pausing on one of our fence posts with a big juicy, bright green caterpillar in its beak. There were many more treats for the nestlings, but caterpillars seemed the most popular.

It takes a lot of herbivorous prey to raise baby robins and I wondered what plant damage the robins were averting this summer. Gosh, it might have been the right year for growing cabbages. My last efforts were aborted by caterpillars.

By June 19, there was one large nestling left in the nest, almost filling it. By June 20, the nest was empty. I didn’t see any speckle-breasted baby robins anywhere.

I went to the corner of the yard by the compost bins to re-pot houseplants. As I approached, a robin flew in, perching on a branch eye level with me. I stopped and we looked each other in the eye. I murmured congratulations in case it was one of our parent robins. Then it flew to a new perch a few feet away and I turned, and we locked eyes again.

Most wild animals are interested in staying away from people unless we are handing out food. Otherwise, they don’t encourage our attention because that is often dangerous.

The robin shifted position again, caught my eye, and then flew off around the upright junipers. I could hear again the quiet call it had been making, on the other side of the bushes, plus another odd one. So, I circled the junipers and when I got to the point where I could see into the interior, there was the fledgling.

Unlike a killdeer which tries to draw you away from its nest, I felt like the robin had led me to the fledgling. Minutes later the fledgling flashed away to another shrub, but I didn’t go in pursuit.

Within a week, June 26, I saw a robin sitting on the nest again. Less than three feet away, a male house sparrow with a beak full of dry grass waited patiently for the robin to take a break. His mate waited behind him. I know we have a housing shortage in Cheyenne, but does the robin have a spare room, or what?

We still have a feeder hanging over the patio, under the clear corrugated plastic roof. It’s one of those cage types that uses the blocks of seed that seem to be glued together. The red-breasted nuthatches visit it multiple times a day, pecking away.

A pair of these birds nested in a rotten stub on a tree across the street. We think these are the birds flying over our low house to our feeder. On June 25, I saw five nuthatches on the feeder, probably the whole family dining together. They are completely at home. In fact, as I walk back and forth doing chores, I sometimes remember to look up to where, two or three feet over my head, a nuthatch is completely unconcerned by my presence, or that I’ve stopped so close.

Maybe, like the geese in the park, they read body language and distinguish between danger and safety.    

Bird of the Week: Red-breasted Nuthatch

 

Red-breasted Nuthatch. Photo by Pete Arnold.

In our area, this nuthatch spends the summer in the mountains, nesting in rotten trees in holes it excavates itself. In winter it comes down to join us, its nasal “yank, yank” call heard wherever we’ve put bird feeders out or we have big trees that need to have insect and spider larvae and eggs cleaned off. Watch as it climbs up and down tree trunks and around large branches.

Published Dec. 17, 2008, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. Text by Barb Gorges, photo by Pete Arnold.

Hootie, the red-breasted nuthatch, comes home

Rescued Red-breasted Nuthatch contemplates freedom. It is illegal to harbor wildlife without a permit or oversight by someone with a permit.

Published Oct. 12, 2005, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, “Rescued bird finds his way home.”

2014 Update: My eBird records for my Cheyenne backyard show observations of Red-breasted Nuthatches, including heard only records, occur year round. Apparently, not every individual goes to the mountains for the summer. But it is not known whether the nuthatches in the city in summer are breeding.

By Barb Gorges

Hootie’s mother once told him she met his father at a backyard feeder in Cheyenne early last spring. She said as soon as the weather warmed they went up to the forest to look for a building site, eventually settling on a ponderosa pine with a broken top and a rotten spot.

Hootie’s mother did most of the tree excavation and stuffed the new home place with shredded bark, grass, feathers and fur. It became a cozy fit as the six red-breasted nuthatch youngsters grew larger.

“Stay away from the doorway!” was his parents’ constant refrain as they darted in with different kinds of beetles, spiders and caterpillars up to 18 times an hour. “The squirrels will get you if you don’t watch out!” they said as they left with another fecal sack as smelly as any diaper.

One of the furry monsters climbed within a few feet of the nest entrance but was met by Hootie’s mother. Perching above, her wings outstretched, she swayed slowly from side to side, mesmerizing the would-be baby eater until it woke with a start and fled.

Keeping Stellar’s jays away was more difficult. Hootie’s parents spread pine pitch around the edges of the entrance. None of the vain big birds would risk dirtying its feathers by poking its head in. The pitch kept out pesky ants too.

Finally, in late July, three weeks after hatching, the big day arrived. The children were dressed in garb nearly identical to their parents’. Each had a blue-gray jacket, pale red vest and flat black hat. Their white faces were marked with a black stripe through the eye.

Hootie’s parents laid down squirrel fur across the sticky doorsill and began encouraging their children with a new song, “Come on out, the weather’s fine. Flying is a wonderful thing. You’ll love it. And walking up and down tree trunks is a hoot.”

As Hootie tottered at the threshold of the bright new world, the rush of air triggered his genetic reminder to flap. He clumsily made it to the neighboring tree. Soon all his siblings were enjoying flying and finding insect treats hiding in tree bark, though their parents planned to feed them for two more weeks.

Two bicyclists were also enjoying the sunny day, following a narrow trail through the forest. But they didn’t look like any of the dangers Hootie’s mother had described. He never even saw what he hit.

On the ground stunned, he thought maybe there was something about using wings his parents had forgotten to mention. But he could still flap them. It was his leg that wouldn’t hold up. “Mommy!” he cried. “Daddy!” And then he was scooped up and put in a small dark place, just like his old nest.

Six weeks of recovery in a bird cage was like returning to the nest. Someone brought him turkey scratch and then mealworms every day and someone cleaned up after him. But there was also sunlight from the nearby window, a seed cup to sleep in, a water cup to bathe in and seeds to pull from a stick and hide.

Only there was no one to answer his “yank-yank” call except well-meaning people.

One day, near the end of his hospitalization, though he still had a limp, the bird cage was taken outside. The gust of air and the loud rustling noises alarmed him, but then he recognized the wind and aspen leaves.

Just as he settled down, real terror visited. A soft but wicked voice said, “What’s a tasty morsel like you doing out here all alone?” The blue jay stuck his long bill into the cage.

“You’ll never get me!” taunted Hootie from the far side, fluffed to his full four and a half inch height. “You’re too fat to fit between the bars!”

One evening three days later his foster parents returned him to the wider world, bringing him to a grove of big cottonwoods and elms—kinds of trees Hootie had never seen before but had heard his parents describe.

“Cheyenne, I must be in Cheyenne!” he thought. Then he heard “yank yank,” the call of another red-breasted nuthatch.

“It’s party time pardner!” it said. It was true. In the fall no one argued over mates or nesting territories.

“We’re hanging with some Wilson’s warblers just in from Canada. They’ll only be here for a day or two before heading for Mexico. Aren’t you glad we don’t have to migrate that far? We can just stay and catch bugs sleeping in tree bark and fill in our empty spots with seed.

“My folks want to stay in the mountains this winter. They think the pine and spruce cone crop will be good. Me, I prefer the easy life. Ah, so many seeds, so little time. You hardly have to hit the same feeder twice in one winter!”

And so, dear reader, should you notice a red-breasted nuthatch at your birdfeeder this winter that favors one leg, give him greetings from all his friends: the bicyclists, the vet, the bird rehabilitator, his foster parents and me.

Author’s note: This story is based on an actual rescue this summer and information from Birds of North America Online, http://www.bna.birds.cornell.edu/BNA.