{"id":1408,"date":"2008-07-13T17:43:24","date_gmt":"2008-07-13T22:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/1408"},"modified":"2008-07-14T01:10:28","modified_gmt":"2008-07-14T06:10:28","slug":"irritating-catbird-neighbors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/1408","title":{"rendered":"Irritating Catbird Neighbors"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a pair of nesting catbirds<\/a> in the Japanese maple in my front yard.  For a couple months now I’ve watched them setting up house and listening to their occasional mewing.  At the same time of course, they were watching me.  I knew where they were, they knew where I was. \n<\/p>\n

This morning, as I packed my car for a trip to the Goodwill clothing bins (re: this post<\/a>), they were screaming in my face like they’d just then figured out there was a human in the neighborhood.  I’d bring a load out to the car and one of them would perch on the limb closest to my front door and yell at me.  As I walk to the car it would follow from one branch to the next.  By the time I got back to my front door they were both there yelling at me.<\/p>\n

I’ve no idea how many eggs they had in the nest but I figured one of the younglings had fallen out and was probably hiding somewhere in the azalea by my front steps.  The screams got louder the closer I was to my front door and the azalea is the only place there where a small bird can hide.  So after I got the car loaded I paused on the front steps and, not moving, scanned the bush beside them with my eyes while the catbirds screamed at me.  There it was, keeping still and quiet.  It still had most of its down, but a few feathers had already grown in.  Its wings however, were no where near flight capable.  Problem is, I need to use my front door every now and then. <\/p>\n

We have cats in the neighborhood, so I don’t know if the little youngling is going to make it, but at least it wasn’t advertising its whereabouts like a mockingbird youngling will (and I’ve never figured that out), so maybe it can keep hidden until it’s wings grow in.  In the meantime, I’ve got a couple of catbirds that don’t want me using my front porch anymore.  There was a nice summer shower just now and with it a slight cooling breeze and I wanted to sit out on the front porch with a drink and enjoy it and I couldn’t because the catbirds kept screaming at me.  Oh well.  Better catbirds then mockingbirds.  Were they mockingbirds I’d have been getting pecked as well as screamed at.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a pair of nesting catbirds in the Japanese maple in my front yard.  For a couple months now I’ve watched them setting up house and listening to their occasional mewing.  At the same time of course, they were watching me.  I knew where they were, they knew where I was.  This morning, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}