The heat wave has passed and now we have our old comfortable friend the fog back again – drizzly mornings that keep temperatures in the cool 50s and 60s — the type of weather that makes this such a good climate for growing lettuces, greens, and strawberries.
Birds are nesting all around the farm and surroundings. The ospreys are on their nest on the pole out in the slough, and the eagles have been spotted in the vicinity of their nest tree. Closer to the house, a pair of mockingbirds keep trying to build a nest in the harvest crates we have stacked in front of the packing shed. Amelia thwarts their efforts every time she sees them bringing twigs to the crates, trying to discourage them so they can successfully nest elsewhere. But they are persistent, which is just like a mockingbird. When they get something in their head they repeat it again and again — it’s hard to change their tune!
In the garage, barn swallows are in the same nest they’ve occupied for years. Somehow, three swallow chicks ended up on the floor of the garage, with the parents frantically swooping at our cats to keep them away. At first we thought they might be early fledglings, but they did not try to fly at all. We put a cat barrier to the garage, and Steve got out the ladder and put the babies gently back in the nest. All seems well, with the parents continuing to feed the noisy little mouths all day long.
Out under our deodar tree, Amelia found a featherless new baby bird on the ground. She plopped it back into a nearby nest, but then realized it was the wrong nest. Now we think it may be a cowbird chick, which she placed in a house sparrow nest. The chick is bigger than the other chicks in the nest, and may outcompete the other chicks in the nest for food. Reading up on cowbirds and their nefarious ways (they are parasites who lay their eggs in other birds’ nests), Amelia is now wracked with guilt about putting the baby bird in the nest. But the house sparrows are invasive in their own right, and had taken over the nest in question from the cliff swallows that originally built it a few years ago. So, as often happens, right and wrong are difficult to define when meddling in the affairs of wild animals.
We enjoyed seeing many of you at our Blueberry U-Picks. There was a great turn-out and many blueberries were picked! We have no more u-picks planned at the moment, but keep an eye out here in the newsletter for potential strawberry picking in July.
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