It is also good to telework and every time you look up from
your computer screen you see the yard, the birds on the feeder (maybe not the cowbird
that is feeding right now) and even sometimes a deer under the birdfeeder. I guess it should not be unusual to see
cowbirds and deer at our feeders. We
live on the edge of a large forest, and cowbirds are edge species. They are nest predators, meaning that they
lay their eggs in the nests of unsuspecting birds. It is kind of sad and funny at the same time
to watch a tufted titmouse feed a much larger young baby cowbird, thinking it is their
offspring. Cowbirds do not go too far
into the woods and it is the forest fragmentation caused by our increasing
urbanization that creates so much forest edge.
As a result the cowbirds are slowly replacing all the songbirds that
depend on the interior of the forests such as vireos and warblers, by laying
their eggs in the nest of these forest birds; something they could not do (or did not dare) in
the past. It is the same thing with the
deer; they are running out of room and food in the woods and are therefore invading the neighborhoods at night, eating
plants and spreading ticks (lyme) at night.
Sitting here at the dining room table I can see the
sassafras and the flowering quince in bloom; redbud is about to start, as is
the dogwood. I think by the weekend they
will be at their best. Soon it will also
be snowing pine pollen, which is amazing in our area. I am wondering if any of our plants did not
make it through our unusually harsh winter, only time will tell. This picture is of the quince in our bag yard,
and you can probably see the dogwood starting to bloom. Thanks goodness the deer don’t like the
quince; that is very different from the azaleas which they strip.
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