Birdwatching

Each of our rental rooms has a clothesline strung under the porch roof. Yesterday when I went to paint the front of one room, there were some grasses hanging on a group of three clothespins on the line. The way the wind blows things around here, I didn't think much of it, and I knocked the grass off.

Image by mostevens via Flickr

It wasn't long before a pair of little yellow and gray bananaquits fluttered in to land on the clothesline with grass in their beaks. Oh. I know they thought it was a fine place for a nest, protected under the roof like that, but it would be no good for them to build it there, and I told them so. I explained to them there would be people coming and staying there and sitting on the porch and having lunch at the table right under the nest.

They didn't seem to understand, and persisted in bringing nest materials. They started with with something sticky, which was probably gathered-up spider web. They attached it to one clothespin, then snagged it on the second, and then the third. Then they brought grasses and arranged it just so.

I hated the thought of them putting so much work into a nest, only to have it knocked down by the housekeeper next time a guest was expected. I moved the three clothespins far apart, hoping that would discourage the bananaquits and send them looking for a different nest site. But they were adamant that this was the place. Even while I was painting just three feet away, they continued to bring spider web and grass, puzzled over why they couldn't connect the clothespins like before. Fine. If they were going to be that persistent, let them build the nest. I put the three clothespins back together, and they cheerfully began building again.

When I checked this morning, they had made some progress, but not much. It seems to me a tricky place to hang a nest. I've been watching another bananaquit nest down the hill. They build a hanging nest with a side entrance. This other one is hanging in a small tree and incorporates several branches, so it seems more secure than hanging on a clothesline.

I didn't know what these birds were at first. I thought they were goldfinches, but the beak isn't right for that. It took me a long time to figure it out online. It's hard to find a site where you can type in "little yellow bird with gray throat and curved beak" and actually get an answer. I found it at www.whatbird.com. They have a good system for narrowing down types, colors, and traits to find the answer.