Strange Birds

Photo of a plastic flamingo-shaped watering can watering some lantana flowers in a hanging basket beneath a deck.

A nuthatch has moved into our flower pot. It’s a hanging basket filled with lantana flowers. Two mornings in a row I was watering the plant when a bird flew right in front of my face close enough that I could feel the breeze from its flapping wings on my cheek. I was so confused. Where did it come from?

The basket hangs off the deck in a semi-enclosed corner of the house. It seemed like a weird spot for a bird to be randomly passing through. It’s near where the robins built a nest earlier this year, but this bird was coming from the opposite direction. Could the robin have been heading toward the nest then changed course when it saw a human standing there?

The third morning the bird landed on top of the covered fire pit at the far side of the patio where it proceeded to squawk at me angrily. I was able to get a good look at it. This wasn’t the robin but a white-breasted nuthatch. I know this because I looked it up on the internet, not because I’m the sort of person who can identify birds on sight.

The internet tells me they get their name because they like to shove nuts into splits and crevices in trees forcing them into the little space until the pressure cracks the nut open or “hatches” it. I think of the little nuts we found shoved into split pieces of deck rail earlier this year. We had blamed a woodpecker, but now I’m thinking it was more likely a nuthatch. Was this bird living in our deck somewhere? I took a cursory look but found no evidence.

On the fourth day there was no bird flying in front of my face. On the fifth day I stood on the ledge that brings me to almost eye-level with the hanging flower basket so I could stare intently at the flower pot as I watered it, and sure enough I heard the flutter of wings and the nuthatch flew out of the lantana.

On the internet every picture of nuthatch abodes shows them living in holes in trees. Thanks to the emerald ash borer beetle there are no shortage of trees filled with holes in this town, but somehow we have the one weirdo nuthatch who has decided to make camp inside a flower pot. I tried peering through the deck slats from above to see if I could see any nest or eggs in the pot, but I could see only foliage. If the bird has built an actual nest among the flowers, it’s hidden from view.

I worry about flooding the bird’s home but the lantana plant is thirsty especially in this heat. I try to aim the beak of my watering can (it has a beak because it’s shaped like a flamingo) at the opposite side of the flower pot from where I saw the nuthatch launch itself.

One thing I will say about this bird, she’s pretty brave. The robins usually took off when I stepped out on the patio. I can be standing right beside the hanging basket, and it’s not until I’m actually dowsing it with water that the bird takes off and flies out of reach to scream at me. Sorry, bird, but that’s what you get for not making your home in a tree like a normal nuthatch. Well, normal is overrated, I suppose.

Maybe some day this house next door will finally be done, but not this week. It will be one step closer by the week’s end. Maybe two steps closer. Hey, a girl can dream!

This week I have no time to write this post, but I am writing it anyway. I won’t have any time next week or the week after either, but I’ll probably find the time to write. I’m knee deep in a project with a firm deadline. Nose to the grindstone sort of stuff. But it will get done. The house will get done. The nuthatch will raise its brood in unusually challenging circumstances that are entirely its own doing. I feel you, nuthatch. We’ll all get there whether we take the hard road or the easy road.

Pleasant travels, my friends. Don’t forget to enjoy the journey!

— Alissa