In the seven years in which I’ve adjusted to living at Hunter Hill, an apartment complex just beyond the fringe of Hagerstown, Maryland, about six miles south, if that, from the Pennsylvania border, I have raised, by turns, doves, wrens, and robins by way of leaving habitat or space for nesting.

The doves simply took over a hanging basket.

Thinking that it looked cool to leave some gardening materials — hemp rope — in a bag hanging on the knob of the utility closet door, the wrens must have thought it a chimney.  Before they got to that, they tried setting up on a yard sale sculpture, a keystone or gargoyle, possibly for the Lyric Opera House in Baltimore.

All of that brood, four birds, I recall, survived in that sun-warmed humid sack to fly away and return to poop on my deck another day. As species go, not unlike some humans, those really don’t forget where they come from.

And the Robins, if you look twice at the above, found the railing and rain gutter combo perfect for a round mud and straw nest.

All birds fledged.

The mess left on the brick beneath and to the side of the nest continues to fade.

The rule, as I understand, is once nested, hands off by Federal law, so I have learned to fight them wherever they are, humiliate them, and collect the tax for the defense . . . wait . . . blog confusion . . . .

🙂

I have learned, and with the luck to be here during the day, to discourage nesting.

Next to “grid sticks”, which I’ve also used on planters and hanging baskets, I have found really the most effective behavior for the nest builder is making a sudden personal appearance accompanied by a human roar so determined it would send King Lear leaping for safe ground and disappearing in the heather.