So we’ve got a pair of phoebes that nest on the porch every spring, about 6 feet from the back door. Every year I try to discourage them from nesting there and pick a nice safe spot in the barn instead, and every year they put their nest in the same damn spot. As long as they are in nest-building mode I try to keep ahead of them in hopes they’ll find a spot that doesn’t have some big predator tearing out their work, but it never works. Once the first egg is laid I feel guilty and stop harassing them.
Anyway, because they are so close to the back door, which is the only way in and out of the house, we end up disturbing them a lot. Early this season one the adults was startled when I went out the door at night and the motion detector light came on. It flew in the door, across the kitchen and down a long hall, and then beat itself silly against walls and windows while we opened every window in the house and tried to herd it back out. Eventually we got it back outside, but it got beat up enough that I didn’t think it would survive. It must have, because a week later the eggs were in the nest, and eventually produced 5 surviving hatchlings—a record. (Last year two birds fledged; the year before it was just one.)
So tonight, I pointed out to my wife that the chicks were getting pretty cute, and when she came out on the porch and I pointed to them and suggested she get a photo, the movement scared the bunch of them and all the chicks flew out of the nest. This surprised the hell out of me, as I’ve not seen any of them out of the nest yet this year, and the chicks usually seem to tolerate our presence very well. But they were out of the nest in a hurry and all seemed to know how to fly!
My question: Has our disturbance chased these birds out of the nest too soon, compromising their survival? Or would they have been out of the nest about now anyway, and we were just the trigger to get them out? In other words, how much guilt should I bear?
0 comments:
Post a Comment