Blah, Blah, Birdies

The other day, I was taking my hanging flower basket down off the hook to water it and....AGHHHHH! A bird came flying by my head, its wings flapping in my hair as it flew away! It scared me half to death, and I screamed! AGHHHH! Of course, the bird had a nest, with eggs, sitting so pretty inside the middle of my hanging flower basket. The week before I had already thrown out a nest, without any eggs yet, from the same basket. So, I had a dilemma...do I gently put the basket back without removing the nest and hope that the mother bird will come back to nest, or do I throw the nest out?

Last year I had this same problem. Birds had laid eggs in my hanging ferns. Last year I didn't have the heart to move the nest and the eggs, so by the time the baby birdies had hatched, my fern was dying of thirst and pretty much completely demolished. I ended up having to get rid of my fern.

This year, I wasn't so nice--we removed the nest, along with the eggs, and placed it in the tree closest to the hanging baskets. (Of course, while we were doing this, you could hear the mother bird chirping with fear and sorrow.)

Today, I was once again taking my hanging basket down to water it, and thankfully no bird came swooping by my head this time. But the bird did try to get smart--she had laid more eggs where the nest had been, without building a new nest. So, once again, we removed the eggs and placed them in the nest that we had moved earlier into the tree. This is one persistant mother bird!