What's for dinner?

There's a commotion outside the back door. Through the screen I hear the fussing of chickadees and blue-gray gnat catchers, at a tempo I cannot ignore. Stepping just into the woods, I can see the problem clearly.
Fred has left his neighborhood hangout again.


Six feet of Black Rat snake coursing along the vines and trees of our back woods never goes unnoticed. This time, though, he seems content to return home to our attic space, unfed.
Perhaps he's eating in tonight?

The hawthorn

From the kitchen window, I could barely see it.
A cardinal’s nest tucked high in the tangled branches of a small hawthorn.
It was the activity there, that caught my eye—Mama and Papa repeatedly arriving with fat, juicy green caterpillars for a family in a nest of sticks and stems.
But I never saw their faces, until Sunday.
When they caught someone else’s eye, too.



Even from an upstairs window, it was hidden well. Dense leafy branches and an occasional long thorn discouraged me from searching further.
A single broad reaching mouth, the only visible sign of life.


Papa was easy to recognize in the yard. A bad case of feather mites had eliminated every last remnant of his glorious red crest--his entire head, where he could not preen, bald and black. With a cheerful, “chip,” he tirelessly arrived with food.

By Sunday afternoon, I’d resigned myself to the fact that I’d probably never see the growing chick attached to the gaping mouth.
One day, she’d just be gone.
The messy sticks and stems would fall loose with autumn leaves.
And Papa would again be brilliantly feathered at the feeder.



But just then, from across the yard, an alarm sounded.
From the back, I came running to the base of their tree, while Mama and Papa looked on, frantically crying out.
Wrapped around the trunk, in a mass of vines—a large black rat snake slowly climbed through the branches.
The nest, just feet away.

In the time that it took me to release him back by the pond, all had grown quiet in the hawthorn.
An unsettling quiet that hinted of loss, and made me wonder if I had arrived on the scene moments too late.
I ran upstairs to peek down.
Yes, the nest was empty.


But at the very edge of the highest thorny branch, a fuzzy brown lump.
And a mouth that looked very familiar.

Behind Enemy Lines

Any opportunity to see something new excites me.
Glimpses into the natural world present themselves unexpectedly—unexplored treasures land almost upon my doorstep.
At times, I find myself caught between giddy exploration and more thoughtful restraint.
With a camera in hand, so much more can be seen.
Yet, how close is too close?
And when does my desire to discover interfere with what I want so badly to see?

I struggle to do what is best for both.
And lacking the experience with nesting birds and close contact with fledging hummingbirds, thought I might have the recipe for disaster brewing. Pictures of prematurely fledging babies are not what I’m after. Or abandoned nests, with orphaned young.
Just a clearer picture of what I have never before seen.

Tossed, I wrote to Julie Zickefoose.
Her experience and knowledge are beyond measure.
Her passion, directed as it should be.
Toward all things natural.

Her first question to me, “Are you sure your attention won’t bring predators in with scent?”
Jays, chipmunks and snakes might be alerted to the presence of a nest, if I’m careless in being near. Like the path in the woods that all must walk down, regardless of where it leads, scent is an invitation to explore further.
I must be careful of my presence there.
And not lead others to them.

I snapped just one close-up, waiting until she had left for food, and disappearing before her return.


Two hairy raisins sleeping soundly, already much larger than just days ago!
And a tiny bare wing folded against pink skin.

Then I sat at a distance, hoping to see her feed them before settling in again.
For almost 2 hours I waited, focused on the branch with a longer lens, perfectly still, watching the nest until my legs ached from the stillness.
Through the yard, chatter from another female and 2 males as they darted back and forth to the porch feeder.
And Mama chipping from behind me somewhere, though I dared not take my eyes from her nest.



I left for work without ever seeing her return.
Crossing the sidewalk in the front yard, I found a large black rat snake stretched out in the grass.
Perhaps she saw him there as I waited?
And watched his progress as he hunted.

I relocated him far from the maple tree.
And found Mama back at the nest that evening.
Resting beneath her leafy canopy in the rain.