Tuesday, May 24, 2011

First Empty Nest

A few weeks ago I came in to my studio and a wren had built a beautiful nest on my shelves and left six eggs there. She has been my constant companion in the studio since the eggs hatched, coming in to feed her babies every thirty minutes while the dad sat outside my window and chirped at her. This evening after dinner, I went down to finish up a coil pot, and there were little baby birds chirping all over the place. They were learning to fly in my studio! Gerry and I opened the door, mom and dad called to them, and off they went. Such good parents, they flew around showing the babies what to do and watching them very closely. It was such a fun thing to watch. Later I heard the parents outside screehing and a black snake was laying at my studio door, the daddy bird attacking him. Gerry encouraged the snake to leave and mom and dad settled down. It was crazy. So far this week, we have killed two copper heads, and have seen, not killed, four black snakes, all around my studio. I'm not looking forward to battling with these snakes all summer, I really hope they find another place to hang out. Between the cicadas, baby birds and snakes my studio is the happening place right now!
I've started working on some large coil pots that I'm pretty happy with. I have lots of orders for houses, but I have no clay and can't get down to get any until Friday, so I'm using some recycled Phoenix to make some coil pots, gotta make something....

11 comments:

cookingwithgas said...

What a nature of an adventure! We stopped in Pittsboro coming and going to Va. the noise of the cicadas was amazing- what a noise!

Tracey Broome said...

It's mind numbing! And there are dead ones EVERYWHERE! I keep having to throw them out of my water bucket, so nasty. You should have called, I could have met you!

Trish said...

Sounds like you really need to watch where you are stepping..snakes!! I have a little wren building in an ornamental, I thought..birdhouse just outside my garage window..Hope she doesn't mind me coming and going to the kiln tomorrow..;)..
Looking forward to seeing your coil pots..
T.

Mr. Young said...

Just waitin for those coil pots! Should be good.

cookingwithgas said...

T- I was with Mark which means, stop to get rid of liquid and grab a bite and get back on the road. I want to come see you when I have time to come see your studio.
Soon I hope!

Lori Buff said...

It was fun watching the wrens in my kiln room. They will come back next season if the nest is undisturbed.
I've heard that if you sprinkle some garden sulfur on the ground it repels the snakes.

Jimmie said...

Snakes alive!!! So glad you were able to shoo the black snake away to calm your birdie family. Right now I'm hoping that no snake gets the seven bluebird eggs in one of our boxes. In spite of a collar around the box, the first clutch went missing after eggs were laid. A snake is all that I could figure got to them since I never saw evidence of anything else.

I'm also watching a Monarch chrysalis hoping to catch sight of the butterfly when it emerges. I was lucky enough to spot the caterpillar make the chrysalis on one of my rose bushes. It happened so fast!

Thanks for the nature commentary today!

Diane in North Carolina

SUSAN WELLS said...

I've got black snakes too. Which I am happy about to take care of the dang MICE! We did remove 4! black snakes however, last Saturday evening from my in-laws blue bird nesting box pole.

Michèle Hastings said...

since moving to NC snakes have been my biggest fear! i have only seen a couple of black snakes here and i hope that i don't encounter any copperheads. the fear has been a good motivator for me to keep everything trimmed and the grass cut... it was very overgrown when we moved in.
i haven't heard the cicadas yet... last year they were amazing here.

Anna M. Branner said...

Snakes and coil pots? Subliminal much?!?

Krystyna said...

Polish name this bird is: strzyżyk wole oczko :)