Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Baby Birds!

Bird Nest 1

Since Gord shared his lightning photo, I thought I'd share my baby birds with you all. About a month or two ago we noticed that a bird's nest had been built under our front porch. We wondered if there were eggs in it, but decided not to peek in lest we scare the mama bird away from wanting to keep up with her babies. There was no bird poop on our porch to speak of until about a week or so ago, and when that started appearing we started thinking, "Oh geez; we're probably going to have to call somebody to move this nest before things get unsanitary around here."

Well, before I got around to making phone calls to explore that, the eggs hatched! So I managed to peek out my door this past Sunday and take a few shots before mama bird got nervous at the sound of my camera going off (it's not that loud, but she reacted to each and every shot I took, so I can only assume her hearing's good enough to catch it and make her freak out a bit).

Above is a shot of the baby birds themselves. You can see about 5 heads popping out of there easily, and I'm sure there's at least 6 babies in the nest. Click on that pic to go to my newly-minted Flickr account, and there are two additional shots that show the mama bird as well.

Oh, and the mess on the front porch is growing. Had to hose it off the other day, and it's already almost half the size it was before I hosed it. I may have to relocate the birds and nest and all. Any advice on who to call? I want the birds to be happy and safe and all, but I can't have feces on my doorstep, of course. Is there a humane (and inexpensive) organization that I can call to help relocate them somewhere better? Anyone know? Any bird-lovers out there?

12 Comments:

At May 31, 2006 8:23 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

My grandparents had a nest on their from porch too! Actually, in the corner of an awning but kinda the same. Anyway, after only a few weeks the babies all left and my grandpa took the nest down. If I were you, I'd just wait for them to leave then remove the nest. Enjoy them while they're there. :D

 
At May 31, 2006 8:24 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What kind of bird is that?

 
At May 31, 2006 6:47 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

I once birds nesting on my cctv camera. Humane thing to do is put up with it for this year (yeah, I know, that kinda sucks) and wait for the babies to leave the nest. At that point, destroy the nest. The birds will set up shop elsewhere. If this is a place where the winters are cold enough for the birds to fly south for the winter, you will have to destroy the nest at the first sign of its construction next spring or you will have to go through with this all over again next year. If a mama & papa bird are building a nest and the nest is destroyed during construction, they'll go somewhere else. Hope this helps ya.

 
At May 31, 2006 9:39 PM, Blogger David Lambert said...

Okay, I'm going with the suggestion to leave it until the babies take wing, and then destroy the nest.

As for next year, after the nest is destroyed I plan to nail down some sort of steep slope or what have you in that spot, to preclude a new nest from being built there.

A coworker looked at these pics and decided these are Chimney Swifts. I looked it up online and tend to agree.

As for putting down newspaper or something else, the wind blows it away so that's impractical.


Thank you everybody for all of your help and suggestions. My 8-year-old is fascinated by the birds, so this is a cool little thing, and since you make me feel good that this won't take too long, then we can just enjoy it for now (and step around the poop!). :)

 
At June 01, 2006 2:02 AM, Blogger J.D. said...

I don't know about birds, but looking at the architecture around it, I almost would bet that I know the general area you live in Memphis.

 
At June 01, 2006 5:40 AM, Blogger David Lambert said...

I'll stalk you before you can stalk me! ;)

 
At June 02, 2006 1:24 AM, Blogger J.D. said...

LOL, no stalking here :) There's just stark differences between the kinds of houses in different areas of M-town.

 
At June 02, 2006 5:32 PM, Blogger Gord Lacey said...

Dave, how about a baking pan with a rock in it? Should be able to find something for $5.

Gord

 
At June 03, 2006 6:07 PM, Blogger David Lambert said...

Thanks for the suggestions, but really it's no trouble hosing off the stoop. It just takes a minute, and it's not like it stains it forever.

I've just uploaded some additional pics of the birds: 2 showing how much bigger they are since last week, and 3 more with better pics of the mama bird. The latter clearly shows that she's a Chimney Swift (thanks to my great friend, Kelly Murphy, for the initial ID of the bird type...I hadn't heard of these before!).

 
At June 06, 2006 2:05 AM, Blogger J.D. said...

If anybody cares, I did an interview with American Idol's Jessica Sierra. She was on DVD and a TV show. Kinda sorta relates.

I just got back from covering the Reality TV convention...anybody who wants to know what it was like can check my blog through my profile. I'll be posting updates all week.

 
At June 12, 2006 11:26 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

Got any big birds... one of these was spotted in my yard this morning. The Great Blue Heron was dining in my yard two summers ago but did not come last year. Apparently, this year, its back.

 
At July 01, 2006 1:08 PM, Blogger QS_Bird said...

yep BABIES do leave. I had the expierence a couple of years ago. We bought a big plastic cover (you use if you paint) and laid that down. After all if your porch is wood u have to be careful.... some bird poop contains acid which will eventually causes alot of damage!!!!!

 

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