Flown the Nest
July 22nd, 2010
One minute our robin fledgling was standing on the edge of the nest, and the next s/he was gone! All that’s left is the well-constructed nest and a little poop.
On Tuesday, sometime soon after I posted about it we noticed the nest was empty and we haven’t seen the robin family since. I heard a robin this morning though, so hopefully they’re doing okay.
In other wildlife news, Pete and I were sitting on the patio last night and shortly before sunset we noticed our friendly neighborhood bat swooping in and out over our yard, hopefully eating up lots of mosquitoes.
Still no inhabitants in our bat house though. Supposedly it may take a season or two before they move in, if at all. Thankfully, also no sign of him residing in our house any longer.
Speaking of which I don’t think I ever posted the “after” shot of our bat house, which we installed over the compost bin (to catch nitrogen-rich bat guano droppings), so here’s a shot of the garden taken about a month ago looking toward the alley.
The neighbors who have inquired about it have been receptive. It’s incredibly thin—we bought it through Bat Conservation International, so I’m sure they know what they’re doing. I would have liked to mount it on the side of our house, but since the walkway is directly under it, it would have been rather risky to mount it there (see previous paragraph).
The next best thing is to mount it on a post 10-15 feet high, which is what we did. The cedar post will weather and turn gray, which is the color I painted the exterior of the bat house per the instructions, so it will eventually blend in a little more.
2 Responses to “Flown the Nest”
Karen Anne July 22nd, 2010 at 9:01 pm #
Is it supposed to be exposed to the sun? I’d think they’d cook in there.
denise July 23rd, 2010 at 8:20 am #
I know, that’s what I’d think too, but the instructions specifically say “sun exposure, not shade, is key.” It says that they prefer temps between 85 and 100 and should face south-southeast to receive 6-10 hours of direct sunlight.
In addition, they tell you to paint the exterior color in black, dark or medium color depending on your location (for us it was dark or medium, so I painted the gray), and the interior should be stained dark using a water-based stain.
I guess we’ll see what happens!