Garden Chaos

Our new house has a large yard.  In fact, the whole lot is about a half acre and the house sits to the front of that so the back yard is large -- wider than deep.  The previous owner had done a lot of landscaping according to the neighbor but not much of it remains -- seems the things she did really weren't good for the house, like piling dirt in flower beds above the foundation line.  So, basically, the yard is a blank canvas and will stay that way, I think.  I rather like the serenity of a large, sprawling lawn.

 

Our neighbor's yard has been designated as an Audubon Society site for songbirds and we do have a lot of birds around.  On Friday I counted five robins in the yard.  I have never seen so many at one time!   I tried to get a photo but I wasn't quick enough.

So, to do our part with the birds, we moved our birdbath and birdfeeders and put them outside the breakfast nook window where we could enjoy watching the little sparrows.  They aren't going to be little for long because they have emptied those feeders twice and they have only been out there for a few days.

We haven't done anything with that flower bed yet because it has been too chilly but it will be cleaned out, the soil lowered away from the house and mulched.  If I put in flowers they will be in pots.  I can handle that.

I have rambled away from the point of the post here -- the crisis.

Well, it seems the former owner had hung a live wreath on the wall that had dried up and was needing to be discarded but we hadn't gotten to it yet.  The other day, while mowing, Hubs discovered a dove sitting on the dried up wreath -- clearly on eggs.  It was a great place for a nest -- under an eave, up high, well hidden. After watching her a couple of days we realized the eggs had hatched and there were two little hatchlings in the nest. 

However, yesterday, Hubs came in said he thought maybe something happened to Mommy Dove as there were feathers all over the ground below the wreath/nest and no bird in sight.  I went out and searched the whole yard -- the babies were screaming their heads off -- and no mommy to be found.

I panicked.  I Googled how to care for baby birds and the best advice was to get in touch with a "bird re-habber" or rescue.  So, I located one or two in the area and went back out to look.  There was Mommy Dove behind the shrubs on the ground.  She didn't appear to be hurt so we left her alone.  She moved all over the ground but didn't get back up in the nest.  We felt sure she was ok so we went on about our business but kept an eye out because we do have a very large, ginger cat that makes it's way through our yard.  As we retired for the night, she still wasn't on the nest but we felt confident that she was close-by.

When I got up this morning I checked and she was back up on the nest with everybody tucked in nice and snug.  I went out to take these photos and I checked -- Mommy is gone again but I did capture a baby sticking it's head out of the nest.  It seems to be the same color as the wreath so see if you can see the babe!

Crisis over!