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June 1997
I have been an Extension Educator in Androscoggin and Sagadahoc Counties
for almost twenty years. I get to
know people in relation to the land: their
questions, projects, difficulties, and adventures.
It’s true that people in Maine love the land and the wildlife on it.
My personal interests parallel what I do for my work, so in my own life
I’m dealing with the same things as the people I meet.
Here’s a recent example from the home front.
We’ve been looking for someone to reshingle the garage, which is only
thirty years overdue for it, and it seems about time.
I was pretty impatient, wanting it finished yesterday, and was glad when
a friend in town recommended someone local with a good reputation. The week before the carpenter was coming to give an estimate,
I noticed a small bird flying out of the garage every time I went in.
Looking it up in the field guide, I learned it was an Eastern Phoebe,
which is common here, but I had seen my first one just a few days before while
visiting a school’s “outdoor laboratory.”
Phoebes build mud nests covered with moss, on ledges sheltered by an
overhang. Each morning, I’d
scan the eaves, looking for a nest. Finally,
I discovered it on the light fixture inside the garage!
I got serious, and looked up information on their nesting. They have two clutches of eggs, and their nesting dates are
late April to early August. So
there it was. Either close up the
garage and force them elsewhere, or put off the reshingling until the phoebes
are done with the nest.
We’ve been working for ten years now to improve the habitat in our yard
for wildlife. This is the first
time we’ve had phoebes, and it seemed a shame to be unwelcoming to these
newcomers. I know why they came to
our area. They like to nest in
forest openings near streams where they can hawk for insects from favorite
perches. They build their nests on
cliffs, ledges and buildings. In
terms of numbers of pairs, we can only expect two, because their territory size
seems to be about 3 to 8 acres for two pairs.
I’m mentioning this, because all this information came into the
decision about what to do with the garage. The carpenter didn’t think it too
odd when we told him why we wanted the job started in mid-August. We aren’t
parking the cars in the garage, but who cares about that if it’s not snowing
and blowing a gale? We now may have the largest birdhouse in the world.
I even found where the phoebes took pieces of moss from my rock garden to
cover their nest. I hear
their calls in the morning, and enjoy their flight patterns when they are
catching insects in the twilight. It
seems that phoebes are common victims of cowbird parasitism, but maybe deep in
the garage the nest won’t attract any attention.
So whether I write about my own experiences or the experiences of people
I work with, in this column I’ll be writing about nature, wildlife, and
people’s responses of love, respect, wonder, and sometimes frustration.
I have discovered that my wildlife interests and knowledge attract other people to notice more, and share their own adventures and observations. My family and my neighbors always have something new to tell me. I even get a good chuckle now and again. My neighbor came over to borrow our tiller, and told me that he’d been on a service call at a house where the old man had put out lots of oranges for the orioles. The old man said, “Boy, these orioles sure have it timed right for coming back to Maine.” “Yes, it is an incredible thing,” said my neighbor, thinking the man was talking about the cycle of the seasons. “Yes,” the man continued, “they come back just when the price of oranges goes up!”
By Nancy Coverstone (ncstone@umext.maine.edu), University of Maine Extension Educator in Androscoggin and Sagadahoc Counties
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