 Coming Out Sun When the first people populated the Cariboo region, back in the mists of time, they devised a semi-subterranean type of winter house. And, after spending much of a long winter indoors ensconced in windowless confines, no doubt the natives welcomed the return of spring with open arms. Their time for abandoning winter dwellings and returning to life above ground was marked by a full moon, and the full moon that marked the occasion was known as the ‘coming out moon.’ No such June moon informs cavity nesting birds that it is time to leave nest boxes and tree stumps. However, I’ve seen birds’ exodus from several locations almost simultaneously and feel there just might be some such universal signal. It began with the birds in my own front yard. For the first time since 2002 a Flicker pair re-used a well worn, and punky poplar stump as a nest site. By the end of June I could hear constant and loud crying out for food. The young birds’ substantial heads’ peered from the tree hole whenever I get in, or out, of my car. One recent morning I shifted my car into gear and eased forward from the parking spot near the nest tree. Several young Flickers watched the movement of this curious hunk of steel until one startled young Flicker decided to launch. Had the nestlings been younger they would have pulled their heads into the hole for protection but now instinct must have suggested that safety lay in flight. I watched the novice flyer execute a controlled fall that took it about 50 feet from the nest tree. I was concerned that it might fall prey to a marauding cat so I searched but couldn’t find the young Flicker. Later, I returned home and heard it calling from across the road, so I assumed that it was more adept at flying than its first flight suggested. One by one, in the following days all the nestling Flickers took wing. On July 2nd the nest was finally silent. At the same time ‘my’ Flickers left home, other similar inaugural flights took place. On Exeter Road a freshly road-killed fledgling Flicker reinforced the danger of the first few days out of the protection of the nest tree. Scattered red and black-barred feathers laying in a yard playing host to a nest of Merlins, suggests that cars are not the only danger a Flicker must avoid. But, it is not just Flickers taking the big leap. Yesterday, at 101 Mile Marsh I clambered over the fence to see how the nest-box-using Tree Swallows fared. I was greeted by a fence line full of bird life. Nearest sat a female Mountain Bluebird peering from an unused nest box. I was quite sure this bird had already raised a brood in a nearby abandoned Three-toed Woodpecker nest. I recently learned Mountain Bluebirds often will immediately begin another nest. Was this her new abode? I scanned the fence line with my binoculars and looked beyond the house-hunting Bluebird. There was a cluster of Tree Swallows around one box. Four of the milling flock was obviously juvenile, with brown plumage similar to the female Swallow who sat calmly on a hydro wire. Beyond that box was yet another cluster of juveniles and parents. Obviously the fledgling Swallows received the universal time to leave-the-nest signal. I walked the fence perimeter and found most boxes were empty with no Swallows in sight, or still playing host to mobs of recently aerially mobile youngsters - some of whom were determined to return home for one last look. The Mountain Bluebird box at the west side of the fence was quiet. I was sure they had nested successfully because I watched the parent birds from a distance through many stages of the nesting. Until next years return, most Tree Swallows, Flickers, and other tree-nester’s are free from enduring the confines of cavity nests. Their life is now one of tree and sky. I might put out a few more bird boxes, or clean a few of the just-used boxes, so those Tree Swallows, or Mountain Bluebirds who want to, can re-nest. Such mundane tasks seems to be the legacy of us terrestrial brutes but it is a chore made just a bit more bearable because we are helping launch another squadron of those most wonderful earth creatures – birds. To e-mail Tom CLICK HERE To look at previous column CLICK HERE |
