Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Sometimes I Can Be Mean


Under the right conditions I can be mean, vicious, downright ruthless.  Most people who know me would doubt this, but let me explain.  You see here baby bird eggs.  Under normal circumstances I would never harm wild bird eggs.  These however are Passer domesticus, house sparrow, eggs.  House sparrows are one of the major factors in the decline of the bluebird population.   They are in fact the only bird eggs  I know of that DEC encourages be destroyed.  In all the time we have been here I have never seen a nest of  house sparrows in any of our bluebird boxes.  Before sealing the fate of these eggs, I carefully checked. Bluebird eggs are this size, but blue, tree swallow eggs are a little smaller and white, wren eggs are speckled but smaller.  These six house sparrow eggs are toast!

It is with sheer delight that I have been watching a pair of  bluebirds nesting in one of the boxes near the new perennial bed down by the road. The other day I noticed a house sparrow sitting on the cage around Ed's blueberries.  Today when I checked the bluebird house I found, to my horror, two dead baby bluebirds.  The other house contained a huge nest and these house sparrow eggs.  The evidence may be circumstantial and I don't know if  the tiny naked babies with the blue tinged wings were actually murdered or if their parents were just driven away.  Either way action will be taken. These eggs are going to be destroyed, crushed, annihilated!  Of course I won't be able to do it myself, but Ed will do it for me.  I ordered the hit so according to the felony murder rule I'm also mean, vicious and downright ruthless and we both feel good about it.


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