It’s Wednesday afternoon, and Fern is still in her hanging nest. I take down the plant and lo and behold, four orange mouths on scrawny stalks wave silently at me. A fifth nestling can’t seem to raise up its head, or perhaps it’s just being crushed by the others. I’ve interrupted a feeding, so I hang it right back up again.
Birds of the World’s pages on House Finches (by Alexander V. Badyaev, Virginia Belloni, and Geoffrey E. Hill, version 1.0, 2020) are filled with authoritative information culled from the numerous studies done on this species. Thus far, ‘Fern’ and ‘Fernando’ seem to be faring well, having discovered a home site blessedly free of their nemesis, the Brown-headed Cowbird. Their first brood ended up with one surviving juvenile, which accompanied them through their second brood. Within a day or less of my putting up hanging ferns on the porch back in mid-May, these three showed up and the adults built a nest in the fern I had foolishly hung next to the door; five eggs were laid and their second brood, of three, hatched in early June.
House Finches are meticulous. They immediately remove eggs that don’t hatch, eggshells, dead nestlings, and fecal sacs from the vicinity of the nest. Despite reports of their being messy, we have only had to deal with a few ripped-out fern fronds.
One fledgling plummeted to its death during a rainy day in June, but the other two fledged and until recently were hanging about with the parents. Now that flocks of juveniles are about, they appear to have left their parents, so it’s back to Fern and Fernando.
While the parents were tending to their second brood, they were also preparing another nest in another hanging fern. As soon as the second brood fledged, Fern began to lay the third clutch—one egg per day, around sunrise.
On June 23, the last of five eggs in the third brood were laid and Fern began to incubate them day and night.
After 14 days, right on schedule, they hatched on the 4th of July and probably into the 5th. Despite the fact they were laid over five days, all the eggs hatched quite close to the same time (I checked on the 3rd and none had hatched yet). This could have to do with the extremely warm temperatures, particularly at the nest, which gets sun for up to 10 hours/day.
I presume this will be their last brood, but I’m not laying any bets on that.
Doldrums
Otherwise, it’s been rather uneventful around here this week. I’ve been quite busy, but had a chance for a brief balcony sit at dawn on Thursday and a longer one today, as well as some evening time yesterday. American Goldfinch males have taken to the air in groups of four and even six, flying around and around in circles and vocalizing non-stop with their staccato chitters and snatches of song. Cedar Waxwings, the other late nesters, appear to be feeding young, but I don’t have a visible nest for either species. An American Redstart has started to fill in the void left by various vanished local species and now sings constantly, while a Yellow Warbler has been hanging around all week.
The weather has produced foggy mornings—today was pea soup—intermittent thunderstorms, and heat indices in the 90s. The river is high, turbulent, and muddy. The dawn chorus shuts down before six in the morning, and the dusk chorus by eight in the evening. There is intermittent bird action nearby, but I get the general impression that, with most fledglings able to fly on their own, family groups, even if roosting nearby, move quickly to feeding areas during the day. Grackleville, for example, has an explosion of activity as Common Grackles and European Starlings burst out around 6 AM, but they hang around for just a few minutes before departing.
Some notable absences are Northern Rough-winged Swallows; this week I have only occasionally seen one from the balcony. Barn Swallows, also, have been scarce, and the other swallows completely absent. Corvids are typically far away and faint, if I hear them at all, and I haven’t seen one in days. Ditto the raptors. Baltimore Orioles are a distant memory at this point, though I don’t think they’ve gone far.
But we’ll always have American Robins. They’re singing before 5 AM, not as urgently as before and quieting down by 6 AM, but during the course of the day, some type of robin noise can typically be heard at all times. And they’re still the last to go to bed: I have to admit, they beat me at both ends of the light.