The New Bathroom Floor

We have a security light out at the end of the house…the side we painted and put a new door on this spring. We’ve also been doing a lot of work outside on the front porch because it’s covered and Mr. FixIt can work out there when it’s raining. Sometimes a bird nests on top of that security light, but I hadn’t seen one, nor had I heard any babies chirping…but there WAS what I assumed to be and old nest up there.

Mr. FixIt came in yesterday and said there was a little baby bird out on the sidewalk that had died. I went out and looked. The baby had a few feathers, but it’s little tummy was still naked and transparent. I picked it up carefully and put it in a small cardboard box and went back to what I was doing. Five minutes later, Mr. FixIt came in again and said there was  another baby bird, but this one was alive. I asked him to get the ladder and I could put it back in the nest, but it died before he could even get the ladder out of the garage. I put the second baby bird in the cardboard box.

I went back to the project I was working on, and sure enough…ten minutes later, Mr. FixIt came back in and said there was a third dead baby bird on the sidewalk. I didn’t get it. He was running a saw, but it was on the other side of the house. He was passing by twenty feet below the nest from time to time, but that shouldn’t have upset the mama bird. We needed to run to town to get some more supplies for the new bathroom, so we left for a few hours.

When we returned and put things away, I moved the rug by the door under the nest and there was another dead baby bird. I did some research and it said that sometimes a bird raising its first clutch will push her babies out of the nest because she doesn’t know what to do with them. Stress and frequent close encounters with the next may cause a bird to abandon a nest, but it was obvious this mama was kicking her babies out. I finally figured out what went wrong. When I picked up the first baby bird, my hands were nearly instantly covered with bird lice. I read in an article, if the nest is infested with lice, the parent may abandon the nest altogether or kick out the babies. So, I think that might be the answer.

It was sad and I hated to lose a whole nest of babies. I did knock the nest down later when I was sure there were no more babies up there. It’s all part of nature and living in the country. In the past, I’ve had to deal with birds nesting in places they shouldn’t be. If you take a rag and soak it in the old-fashioned liquid Lysol that comes in the brown bottle, you can then place the rag in the spot where you want to deter the birds from nesting and it will deter them. It was too dark to do that last night, so I’ll do it today.

Mr. FixIt finished the trim in the bathroom yesterday. It’s going to be so pretty when it’s done. He does REALLY good carpentry work. It may take him forever to get started on a project, but one he does, he’s a dynamo! I am one blessed little wifey…living the country life.

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“Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; they sing among the branches.”

Psalm 104:12 ESV