This splendid autumn of ours can last only so long, and before you know it, snowbirds of every feather will be heading south. The hummingbirds dashed off a couple weeks ago, and the robins will start making their reservations soon. Already the grackles, starlings, and redwing blackbirds gather in the oaks at the meadow’s edge to discuss it at the top of their lungs.
Once they are all gone — all but the doves, sparrows, and chickadees who stick around to weather the winter, and the juncos who will come with the first snows — their forgotten nests of springtime will stand empty through the long winter, each one cradling a puff of pure white with every snowfall.
For now, though, with the leaves falling from the roses that twine up the trellises, the two cardinals’ nests have been attracting special interest.
We were excited to see the cardinals move in this spring, because they have not always been regular customers. We always host several broods of other birds in our yard, but rarely redbirds.
The wrens — my favorite — like to assume occupancy of the wooden houses we have mounted low among the shrubs, with their cozy little doorway so tiny that no other bird could gain entry, and their handy vicinity to the shady understory that they love to prowl for insects and grubs.
The sparrows move in every spring to the old, tattered house on a pole among the lilies. It is so weather-worn it blew down twice this summer in strong winds. Each time I vowed to throw it out and replace it with a new one, but the sparrows love it so much I keep making repairs and mounting it anew. This year, two broods were born in that house.
The robins this year found a sheltered nook in the crabapple tree at the side of the house, rather than building their nest atop the pergola as they did last year. That forced me to put off painting the framework until the babies were well out of the nest and stood begging in the back yard for mommy and daddy to keep feeding them — even though the speckle-breasted lummoxes were as big as their parents by then.
But this year, a pair of cardinals decided to check in to the Kerth feathered nursery. We hosted two nests, each of them tucked safely into the depths of thorny rose bushes twining up trellises, one at the side of the house, and the other in the back.
The nest in the back was built first, and it hosted two fat babies who were out of the nest before we got to see them take their first awkward flights. Not long after, the nest at the side of the house was built and the whole story repeated, leading me to believe that it might have been the same pair getting frisky and hoping for more privacy in their new digs.
In any case, both nests were built deep in the heart of thorny rose bushes, which limited how closely we could examine them or their occupants.
Now, however, as the leaves of autumn tumble to the ground, both nests are in open view, and even without babies to watch, they are still a wonder to study.
Each began construction with a cup-like base, formed from oak leaves and thin strips of paper birch bark. Atop that is a lattice of twigs and straw, with each progressive layer growing finer and finer. Once finished, the nests were lined with feathers before the eggs were laid.
Though several speckled eggs were laid in each nest — as many as six of them — each bore only two babies who grew to fill the little home. There is no telling what became of the other eggs, but by the time the pair hatched, the other eggs were gone. It is a necessary redundancy, I guess, to guarantee that two babies will survive to adulthood. In any case, the babies grow too large for the nest to hold more than a pair of them, so I guess their parents know what they’re doing.
Those cardinal families are long gone. The nests have been empty for months — but last week one of them had a new occupant, if only briefly.
I was watering the nasturtiums that grow at the base of the rose trellis in the back, when I caught sight of some movement at the rear of the planting bed. I saw something travel up the thick stem of the roses before I got a good look at it — a beautiful deer mouse, climbing the trellis, carrying some sort of brown ball in her mouth.
When she got to the vacant cardinals’ nest, she settled in — a loving mommy who had carried her baby (or babies) out of the sudden flood and up into higher ground. She sat in the nest nursing her young until I was finished with the hose. By the time I put it away and came back to check on her she was gone, and she had taken her babies with her.
There is no telling how often she has made that trip, or if she ever would again. Perhaps — who knows? — she enjoys dragging her kids up to the penthouse once in a while just to enjoy the view. Whenever thunderstorms flood her basement nest, the abandoned apartment upstairs would provide a spectacular vantage point to watch the lightning stitch across the sky. And who is to say that deer-mice don’t enjoy a good spectacle now and then?
In any case, there is a lot more going on in a bird’s nest than meets the eye — even in autumn, when the nests have finished serving their original purpose and are now only an afterthought in the garden.
So I think I will leave those marvels of twiggy architecture right where they are, rather than tidying things up for the fall as I usually do.
I don’t think the snowbirds will mind.
I am certain the deer-mice won’t.
• Author, musician, and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Con¬tact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.
