If you’ve read Place Match, you know that I live on 2 acres in Cary, North Carolina, just outside of Raleigh. I chose this house on purpose, given it was one of the most “North Carolina” houses I had ever seen. Georgian style, deck built around a native pine tree, elevated back veranda, plenty of trees to hang a swing…it’s a good place. And I had been eyeing the place for years, driving by it most every day and wishing it was mine. Then miraculously, it was!
Today my home is a work in progress, but also my sanctuary. Same goes for my yard and land. I treat it as the micro-place that it is and make sure it has all the elements of a great place: unique social offerings (glass bottles from the last century are unearthed after almost every rain and it’s a metal detecting wonderland—come join the hunt!), aesthetics (the wooded space is full of breezes and sounds of wildlife and with great sunsets viewable from the veranda), and openness (I share this space with others, namely the wildlife, that were here before me and I want us to both feel we belong here).
I want to spend some extra time on that last one there – openness – usually the hardest thing to get right in a place. How do we get different types to feel like they equally belong in the same space? To that end, I’ve done the usual things: provide bird feeders and bird baths, plant landscaping that can be of use to the animal kingdom, make snowman features out of veggies and seed so animals have a food source after a snowfall.
One Micro Place, Many Inhabitants
But in the tradition of walking my talk, I also do the unusual things to facilitate openness in the yard. I am a citizen scientist participating in the eMammal Program in which I use posted night vision cameras to “trap” nocturnal animal life here and feed that data to local and national scientists studying animal habitats in the human environment (and also so I can know what goes on out there at night). And there have been some interesting finds.
My yard is also a designated Nest Watch site, meaning I keep track of nests, broods, fledglings, and banded birds of interest throughout the year and feed that data to local scientists here at our nationally recognized North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and the Smithsonian scientists in DC. Part of that program involves scientists visiting my yard once a year to check on the banded birds and to band new ones that are of interest for tracking that year. That day is a big deal around here. Grace even stays home from school for a couple of hours to help the scientists band and document these birds. All of these birds have names, thanks to Grace, and they are part of the micro place family that belongs here as much as we do.
I try to stay out of things, but sometimes I have to intervene. I have yanked a snake by the tail out of a birdhouse. I have expertly-built bird boxes created to reduce wildlife temptation and angst. I have delivered wounded hawks to the raptor sanctuary. I have also stopped that same hawk from swooping up a bunny. I have had this spooked guy jump over me as I was lying in my hammock:
Look, if you can just merely standby and observe a snake attacking a baby bird nest or see an animal die in front of you with your child crying and birds screeching while regaling the virtues of the “circle of life”, then congrats and hooray for you. I, on the other hand, cannot.
Leaving the Nest
So with the onset of spring, the resident bluebird couple started their first nest recently. Five eggs delivered. Looking good. Then one morning last week, the bluebirds were on my veranda yelling at me and pecking the window. I know that anthropomorphism (assigning human qualities and explanations to animal behavior–impress your friends at your next party by dropping that one into conversation) is a real thing. But I also know these two, and although they always let me check their burgeoning nests without being swooped, they don’t come near my “humanland” unless something is up. And they were clearly alerting.
After doing my usual scan of the yard and seeing nothing, I head to the nestbox with dread in my heart. With the parents watching me, I check the box. And sure enough, two of the bluebird eggs are missing with no evidence in the box or outside of the box of what happened. (This particular nestbox was not expertly made; it came with the house. But it is the preferred house for this couple.)
Two explanations I know: snakes and enemy birds. So I swath the bottom pole of the box in tomato plant netting (to deter snakes) and create a spooker of my own design for the top of the box (to deter enemy birds) with a pool noodle and pompoms.
Soon things calmed down again, have stayed that way since, and the parents seem ok with my “place-based social intervention”. I was even rewarded later with a much calmer return visit from the parents. And, maybe it’s just my anthropomorphism talking, but I could swear they were watching NCAA Basketball Tournament with me through the window.
All places matter to someone.
as usual, and for both us, this was entertaining and informative and inspiring