Well, today we are hosting a few more guests, but they will be staying a little longer.
We have a screened patio attached to the house. For the most part, it has been extremely effective at what it was designed to do, keep bugs out. In some cases it hasn't been so effective at keeping things in. Case in point, the first time we had some friends over with greyhounds that had never encountered screens before. One of their pups decided it would be easier to use the screen opening rather than an actual door. I mean, they had to wait for the door to be opened, after all. (Luckily the screen was old and ripped easily. That instance has given us hours and hours of amusement.)
Over the years I have replace all but one of the screen panels. Our lawn care folks are making it necessary to focus on getting that done, as they didn't care that their weed-eater shredded the bottom of it. Tsk, tsk. Replacing that screen hasn't been on my high priority list as it has been winter and we don't have too many little bugs yet.
We've had the occasional bird manage to get caught in the screen room over the years. Not sure how they were able to get in. Probably something to do with those replaced screens. So we weren't too surprised to find another bird in the patio room the other day. With the rip in the one screen, and the loose, ripped panels in the doors, the place is far from impregnable.
When we started comparing notes though, we realized we had each been seeing a bird on the patio, separately. I opened my eyes and really "saw" the patio in all it's messy glory, outside of the yellowish green tinged everything was colored from the pollen, besides the 10 year old breaking down patio furniture, in addition to the "wonderful, useful" items that we had procrastinated in taking to Goodwill (and was now caked with pollen), besides the rolled up hammock standing on end...
Wait a second... There's a birds nest tucked into the end of the hammock! What the...?!?!
Some little birdy had taken it as great fortune with multiple passages into our screen room, and made a little nest that was home to a little egg. We were concerned we had scared mommy bird away since we hadn't seen her in a couple days. We didn't need to worry long when a look the next day revealed 5 eggs. Hmmm...
Arriving home last night I was greeted with a little head popping out of the nest inquiring about my passing. She seems very calm though with our comings and goings for now. Lucky, since her little nest is about 6 inches from the hinged side of our back door.
Here's a poor picture. I don't want to completely intrude. :)
Lori:
ReplyDeleteI also had a family of little birdies I was trying to protect but with our construction going on they got too disturbed and moved away.
Now you have an excuse to NOT CLEAN UP . So you don't have to feel guilty if you go riding instead
bob
Riding the Wet Coast
Aw, I'm sorry yours flew away. But I can understand, and detest, noisy neighbors and don't blame them.
DeleteThanks, but I didn't need any more excuses. HEHEHE
Woohoo, up close and personal with nature.
ReplyDeleteNow I need to go check our nesting box out back to see if we have any visitors this year.
It is cool the little bird found a safe haven away from the elements and predators.
We'll be looking forward to video when they hatch.
I hadn't even thought of video! (slapping my forehead) RichardM mentions the GoPro. So I have hubby finding and charging it. :)
DeleteA nesting box. Maybe we should put one of those up next year. We have birds building nests in the shrubs next to the house, but this is the first time they have been this up close and personal.
Oilburner happened to scare the mama today. Though she got back and him and made him drop his phone. hehe
Lori any idea what type of bird it is? We had swallows nesting on our floathome once. We have several hummingbird nests around our backyard area and neighbors yards. Cool!
ReplyDelete:( I am sad to report that I do not know. I will now have to try and discover that. :) Thanks for making me getting smarter...sheesh. hehe
DeleteI have never seen a hummingbird nest! That sounds so cool!
As mundane as it may sound, I believe this is a little Sparrow. Gleaned from the speckled colors on mama bird and the mottled brown of the eggs. :)
DeleteI now consider myself lucky I wasn't sleeping on the patio....I am sure it crossed your mind though!
ReplyDeleteWell...it hadn't crossed my mind until now... hmmm...would have saved lots of time on cleaning and rearranging rooms. ;)
DeleteWhat do you have to do to attract birds?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about others, but apparently we attract birds by being slovenly and lazy in both yardwork and housekeeping. ;)
DeleteThe birds may be less likely to get you into trouble than another prior visitor....
ReplyDeleteSo, can the GoPro be set up to do time lapse?
You got that right!
DeleteI hadn't even thought of the GoPro. Thanks for bringing that up. OIlburner is charging it right now. So do you think video or time shot every minute?
Time lapse, 1 shot per minute. How long will it keep that up?
DeleteCool. That is about what I was thinking too. I think that would probably last around 8 hours. I'll let you know.
DeleteLori:
Deletetwo things:
your GoPro battery may only last 2-3 hours
if you shoot I shot per minute that works out to 60 shots an hour = 2 seconds of video x 3 hours = 6 seconds of video at 30 FPS. Perhaps you should set somewhere around 1 shot every 10 seconds, thats 6 shots per min = 360 shots per hour = 12 seconds per hour. That video is still too short
bob
Riding the Wet Coast
What better place for a nest than a hammock?!
ReplyDeleteNice that they can feel at home, but watch out, the next thing you know they'll be smoking a cigar and asking for a cold one!
That's pretty cool. What great little house guests. :)
ReplyDeleteIt would be neat to get a video of the little family.