Our wildlife update today focuses on one smart fox – and one very silly bird.
The red fox is back. He looks beautiful. Sleek and healthy, his red coat shining in the sun, he hunted field mice along the edge of the back woods this morning. We watched him for about 20 minutes until he gamboled back into the woods. He lies in wait, dark eyes fixed on a point among the tall grass in the wildflower meadow. Then – POUNCE! And, I imagine, a very satisfied red fox.
The bird is another story. She is one silly bird! She is a Phoebe, an insect-eating bird. Over the weekend we noticed Pierre attentively watching out the hall window on the second floor. A closer look revealed a Phoebe, the remnants of her nest washed away by the heavy rains. She was angrily swooping back and forth in front of the closed window, perhaps trying to chase Pierre away. Pierre wouldn’t budge. After over an hour of this, the Phoebe flew away.
This morning John called me downstairs and pointed out the living room window towards our wrap around front porch. There on the ceiling fan was a new nest…and our friend Mrs. Phoebe. She was busily shuttling twigs back and forth to her new nest.
“Remind me not to put on the porch fan,” I asked John as Pierre trilled with joy from his perch on the window sill. It’s like kitty TV for him.
“She’s going to lose the nest again,” John said. “The wind blows the fan blades around. As soon as we get a strong wind, it’s going to dislodge the nest.”
I don’t know whether our Phoebe is smart or very silly. She’s smart because the front porch lights attract insects at night, which makes her job of catching food very easy. But she’s a silly girl, building her nest in all the wrong places.
