Date: 7/7/25 5:19 am From: Lisa Dziuban <dziubanlisa...> Subject: Predator issues- Bucks co.
To answer Arlene’s question about the scarlet tanager behavior, I have only seen a tanager once and that was about 20 years ago when I saw one singing from a high oak tree bordering a field up in the Ottsville area. Also, I have NOT seen ANY hummingbirds this year.
I had a pair of house wrens incubating in a birdhouse that was mounted on a post right behind my house which I could watch easily from inside. One morning I found the box knocked over with the post broken. Male and female wrens were seen that day flying around the box. When I tried to open the box it was full of ants and it was discarded. Nearby I also had a pair of cardinals build a nest in a large rose bush in-front of a kitchen window near where other cardinals had nested previously. This nest was very flimsy. The female sat on it off and on. This was during that heat wave 2 weeks ago. The afternoon sun would hit the nest and the female would sit, with mouth open. I have two bird baths close by which are kept filled. Then I noticed no activity and birds were gone. The nest was still there, unharmed. I peered into the nest and it was empty. Nearby, on the stone walkway to the kitchen door, I noticed an old (looking) shed snake skin probably from the garter snake that lives under the stone. I think squirrels or a large raccoon had knocked over the wren birdhouse. I do not know if the female cardinal had laid any eggs.
There are at least 6 pairs of barn swallows on nests in my barn/ forebay. I have a large table on the forebay under several of the nests. There are at least 2-3 small broken eggs (with yolk residue?) on top of the table, and the remains of a nest on the floor. I see a female on one nest but no young. A resident carolina wren is seen daily rummaging around and flying to a nest I think in the old milk house section of the forebay. I would get a good laugh when I saw the swallows bombard the squirrels….sent them running!
Otherwise, there is much birdsong and raising of young with the other birds. Chickadees, American goldfinches, common yellowthroats, house finches and sparrows, red winged blackbirds, crows, catbirds, etc. Makes for early mornings.
Lisa Dziuban
“Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne” - James Russell Lowell, The Present Crisis
