Bluebird Housing
With the spring came the return of our cheerful bluebird team. Mom and Pop Bluebird took turns popping in and out of the birdhouse, checking room dimensions and discussing possible nesting materials when, suddenly, out of nowhere, came the most dreaded predator in the bluebird kingdom—a pair of sparrows.
The sparrows immediately began unloading their nesting stuff while Pop Bluebird perched on the fence, shaking his fist and cursing them. I hurried off to the Bird Shop to discuss the dilemma with a bluebird consultant.
“I have the solution,” the consultant said, grimly. “If you’re up to it.”
“Sure,” I said. “Absolutely. What have you got?”
“This sparrow trap.” He produced a black iron spring-loaded sparrow-sized contraption from under the counter. “It fits over the hole in the bird house, and when the sparrow goes in, it slams shut and covers the hole and traps him.” He peered over his glasses at me. “Then you have to bag up the sparrow and destroy him. You get what I mean by that?”
“Sure,” I said. He meant I needed to tell my husband to take care of it. Obviously.
I went home and demonstrated the trap to Kevin. He looked doubtful.
“I’ll bag them up and take them to the next town over and let them go,” he said.
I was doubtful. Hadn’t Kevin seen the movie where the dog and the cat and possibly a raccoon traveled across the continental divide to be reunited with the family who moved away and forgot to bring them along? What about alligators? Everyone knows that you can’t relocate alligators. They have a fully functional GPS in their brains, so when they become pesky members of a subdivision they have to become belts and wallets.
“I can’t bring myself to bash the skull of a sparrow,” Kevin said. “I’ll take them to Mt. Pleasant. They won’t come back.”
“You do it to mice,” I reminded him.
“Sparrows don’t have nasty little teeth,” he said.
It actually worked. Kevin bagged the sparrows and sealed them up in ZipLock bags (with air holes) and drove them to Mt. Pleasant. He said it was no problem, except he forgot he had them in his car, and when they flapped and pecked the bag it scared the tar out of him.
They didn’t come back.
I waited for the bluebirds to return, but instead, a pair of wrens swooped in while I wasn’t paying attention, made a nest, and laid their eggs. I was resigned to wrens.
(Except they weren’t wrens. My friend Sally corrected me later. They were Black-Capped Chickadees. Much better than wrens.)
I should mention at this point that this bluebird housing problem was completely Kevin’s fault. The consultant at the Bird Shop told me that, and I agreed, 100 percent. You see, Kevin bought a bird feeder late in the winter that looked like a summer house from Cape May, and filled it to the brim with bird seed. That brought every bird in the vicinity, (except bluebirds, who don’t eat birdseed) and alerted the sparrows and wrens to the bluebird house vacancy.
Kevin was disappointed, but I made him destroy the Cape May birdfeeder when he relocated the sparrows.
I’m pleased to report that as soon as the wrens (oops, chickadees) were finished with their business, and I got Kevin to give Sally their nest and hose out the birdhouse, Mom and Pop Bluebird returned. They’ve gotten busy hauling in pine straw, and trilling like nobody’s business. I hope this year’s baby bluebirds will stay out of the pool.
And there you have it.