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Recently: Lessons from a little birdie

Posted on July 10, 2008 by Staff

The blueberry bush sans bird netting. Photo by Valarie Schwartz.By Valarie Schwartz

It’s not easy being green. Even growing blueberries as a measure of creating biodiversity in my yard turns out to have a downside. I planted two blueberry bushes three or four years ago and during the first few years, because they take time to get established, I freely shared the meager bounty with the birds and squirrels. Last year, I started wanting more than the few leftovers I could nab each morning to decorate my yogurt, so after seeing some black netting at Southern States, I brought it home and placed it over the two plants (having since planted a third bush in a different part of the yard that I left for the birds).

That all worked out fine, until one morning, while looking for some ripe berries, I found a wren trapped in the netting. With a heart beating almost as fast as the bird’s, I quickly released it from its prison, and off it flew, perhaps perching safely on a nearby limb to watch while I immediately removed the netting.

No more of that, I now remember thinking.

Before the end of last summer, something worked over that blueberry bush, completely denuding it, so that this year it produced only leaves. With only one large bush to work with, and apparently forgetting the bird-trapping incident of last year, I pulled out the netting as the berries were getting close to blue. It made for tricky picking when they ripened, but in two days of reaping it produced nearly a pint of delicious berries.

Then, one evening last week, while preparing to play a little pre-dinner badminton with my partner, I heard a commotion coming from the bush and looked to find a Carolina wren so twisted up in the netting that I called out to John to come help. As he held the small creature and I worked at the jumble, the bird continually refilled its lungs, each time exhaling with a high-pitched screech, while I tried my best to untangle it. After getting scissors and cutting away most of the black netting, it escaped John’s hands and took off — but not into the sky. We again captured it and worked more on removing the “vest” of net still remaining across its tiny scapulars and chest. The last cut, releasing the net from across its breast, set its wings free, and away it broke before I could remove the netting. Again it did not take flight but took off under the garden plants with the two of us scrambling after it, but not fast enough before — like a poof! — it disappeared into a dense patch of vines growing over a mostly rotted woodpile.

The little guy was so terrified we didn’t try to find it, afraid that it would only hurt itself worse trying to escape us again.

That’s the last we know of it, I’m sorry to report. We went on to play some badminton, finding it unavoidable to think about, as on three occasions the shuttlecock (birdie) got caught in the court net and the nets of our rackets (a first).
The next day, after a fitful night, I removed the netting, giving the blueberries to the creatures of our yard. It had occurred, as I’d lain awake thinking about the little bird, how lucky I was that it was a feathered friend that got stuck instead of the squirrel that had momentarily become tangled the week before. That would have been a horrendous ordeal! The wren that made a nest in the hanging plant on our front porch has won out. That too had been covered in the netting, for all the good it did. I’d already removed one partial bird nest, but when I saw the second one, I gave up, still wondering if I’ll even attempt watering the plant once eggs are laid and babies hatch.

It seems that as diversity builds in my garden, some of the creatures attracted to it for that reason become my nemeses. Don’t even get me started on the rabbits (or deer)!

So, this chapter in “going green” has proven that a bird in the hand is better than one in the bush. And if the blueberry bush bird turns out to be the same one from the hanging plant, I guess I might have killed (or at the very least terrified) one bird with two — nets — or something like that.

Kermit the Frog doesn’t know from hard. Being on this side of green comes with innumerable challenges and, I’m afraid, far more lessons to be learned.

Contact Valarie Schwartz at 923-3746 or valariekays@mac.com.

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