Valentine’s Day may still be a few weeks away, but don’t tell that to the birds in my yard. Already, the early nesters are wooing mates and preparing nesting sites. Woodpecker drumming is punctuated by the raucous calls of Pileated Woodpeckers. These crow-sized beauties prefer larger stretches of fairly mature contiguous forest, so I worried when the adjacent woods were logged. But in that strip of alluvial forest left by the loggers, these big woodpeckers have hollowed out a new rectangular nesting cavity in the top of an old maple that lost its top branches to a storm some time ago.
Practically adjacent to the woodpecker’s new abode is the mass of sticks that comprised the nest of a pair of Red-Shouldered Hawks last year. We watched them build that nest lodged in the crook of a tall sweet gum just across the creek; they raised four chicks to maturity. The hawks built the nest so that we had a largely unobstructed view from our window.
We focused our spotting scope on the nest and watched the family’s progress — although that became increasingly difficult as the trees leafed out. Ace photographer Wonder Spouse documented the family’s progress with his camera; a photo of the mother with two of her brood appears at the end of this entry.
I’ve read that hawks often re-use the same nesting site, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed that the pair we now hear calling to each other will allow us to watch them raise another brood. Before last year, they re-used a nest in an old pine several seasons, so our hope isn’t unrealistic.
The territorial urge is definitely rising in many of our avian neighbors. When we walk on the floodplain, the hawks vocalize their objections to our presence, and the cardinals (I conservatively estimate at least a dozen pairs live nearby) are chasing others of their gender away from bird baths, and sitting in tree tops bragging about how pretty they are.
I can think of no better argument for planting trees in a piedmont garden than to provide cover and nesting sites for the feathered beauties that fill the air with song — and eat thousands upon thousands of insects that would otherwise plague our gardens and backyards.
Red-Shouldered Hawk with two of her chicks
Piedmont Gardener 