Delighting in Nature
It’s my favorite time of year – when my office moves outside onto the deck overlooking the backyard. Last year, I added a hummingbird feeder to this deck, and this year we added a birdhouse. We already had one of each off the deck on the other side of the house. In my post Becoming a Birder (post embedded below), I wrote about how much I enjoyed watching a broad-tailed hummingbird, house wrens, and mountain chickadees raise their young in the tree off our main deck (the hummingbird on a branch and the wrens and chickadees in the birdhouse).
I get so much enjoyment from watching the hummingbirds buzz around, sometimes so close they make me jump, that I added the second feeder to ensure there was enough food for everyone. I also bought several hummingbird-friendly flowers to plant in pots on the deck. I want our yard to be a safe haven for the birds, so we added the second birdhouse and a birdbath this season. So far, I haven’t seen anyone use the bath, but small birds have been in and out of the birdhouse. I don’t put out birdseed because it attracts bears – we do live in the mountains, after all.
I was overjoyed on Monday as a female hummingbird kept hovering by the deck railing and, a couple of times, flew up to peck at the outdoor rug we put out over the weekend. I figured she was looking for nesting materials, and sure enough, that’s exactly what she was doing. By later that morning, she had built about half a nest on the top of the deck post, where there’s a bit of space between the deck and the post, just under the railing. While a bit hard to see from above, it’s quite visible from underneath. It’s been a few years since there’s been a hummingbird nest so close to the house and so easy to see, so I’m ecstatic. We named her Liza and can’t wait to watch her care for her young. Female hummingbirds do all the work in raising the young. Male hummingbirds do nothing but chase other hummingbirds away from the feeder (unlike the good dads - the wrens and chickadees).
While I was outside, a couple of small deer also passed through, climbing the hill toward the crag behind the house. I’m hoping to see the fox that lives in the area again one of these days, but the timing has to be right since they don’t linger. About a week ago, a black bear and a cub (maybe last year’s cub, since he seemed too big to be born this year) came through the yard. Mama knocked over the recycling bin, but we do a good job of rinsing all our recycling and keep the trash bin in the garage, so she didn’t bother rummaging through it and moved along quickly.
It took me a while to identify the birds exploring the new birdhouse because they always moved fast, and the only features I could really see were a white belly, dark top, and a short beak (so short, in fact, that one time I wasn’t even 100% sure it was a bird from the angle I was seeing it). But on Tuesday, they were making some noise as two of them kept swooping by our slider and landing on the roof and on the branches of the tree with the birdhouse. With the help of the Merlin app, I’ve decided they are Violet-green Swallows. The color just hasn’t been as visible due to the lighting and their speed of movement.
I look forward to many more hours on the deck, watching the wonderful world of nature unfold around me. I keep notes in my phone calendar app about when each year’s milestones occur (when nesting starts, when the little ones leave the nest, etc.), so I’ll be curious to see whether any mountain chickadees or wrens decide to nest in our other birdhouse. In 2024, the wrens settled into the house on June 26. I think it’s too late to hope for the chickadees, since last year the young left the nest on July 4.
I love living in a place surrounded by nature and feel privileged to work outdoors among the wonders of birds' lives and various other critters who call Evergreen home. I look forward to watching the new moms raise their broods this summer from my front row seat.