Tag: bird nest in fake Christmas tree

House Finches Moved On

Today was Day 17 for the house finch nest with eggs-which did not hatch. I suspect the female moved on, probably because of too many intrusions. I removed the nest and eggs.

You’d think they’d know better than to build a nest in a fake Christmas tree in the first place.

It has been said:

You cannot keep birds from flying over your head but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.

Martin Luther

But you can’t keep birds from nesting in your artificial Christmas tree on your front porch.

House Finches at Home in Fake Christmas Tree

We managed to get some critter cam footage of the male and female house finch pair nesting in the fake Christmas tree in our front entry way yesterday. Crank up the volume on your audio to hear them singing.

The male sports a red face and chest. The female is plain brown except for brown streaks on a white belly. While she incubates the eggs, he feeds her periodically.

It’s definitely a tough job sitting there most of the time with temperatures getting well into the 80’s Fahrenheit on our porch even before noon. On the other hand it’s still getting pretty cold at night.

We don’t know when the eggs were laid, but they take about two weeks to hatch. After that the chicks will take a couple of weeks to fledge.

I’m a little nervous about going out there periodically to pick up the critter cam and peek at the eggs. It always startles the female. It can also alert large predatory birds to the prospect of a meal. This actually happened about 4 years ago when I heard what sounded like large bedsheets flapping in the wind. It turned out to be the biggest crow I ever saw taking off with its beak full of house finch nestlings from the real evergreen tree in our front yard (different house).

There should be a bird nest relocation program.

House Finch Nesting in Our Artificial Christmas Tree!

A couple days ago, Sena found a bird’s nest in our front porch artificial Christmas tree. The small nest is made from the clippings of Sena’s ornamental grasses. It has 4 small eggs, which are white with dark specks.

We could hear a bird singing while we were sitting in the house and it always sounded close by. We could see it flitting around but we couldn’t identify it. We thought it might be nesting in our magnolia tree at first but Sena couldn’t find one.

I’ve scared a bird a couple of times lately and it always seemed to be flying off our front porch from somewhere. I never thought to peek in the little fake Christmas tree sitting in a big pot.

So, I got the critter cam out. It hasn’t been getting any use since we solved the problem of our yard drain grate lids popping off by having them screwed down last year. We never did find out what flipped the lids.

Anyway, Sena suggested moving the pot with the tree around to face the front of the porch and set up the critter cam facing the tree. Both the tree and the camera on a tripod are somewhat sheltered from the wind behind one of the columns.

Moving the tree confused the bird a little because it had a little trouble finding it at first. We got a good enough video to identify it as a female house finch. We don’t know when she laid the eggs, but they take a couple of weeks to incubate.

We had been trying to keep birds off our porch by setting out a couple of fake snakes. The birds ignored them. And I guess they don’t mind nesting in fake trees, either.

The nest is probably in a fairly safe spot on the porch. Crows and other predatory birds fly around, but might be less likely to see it from the air. Maybe we should get a fake dog.

We’ll try to keep our intrusions to a minimum, because it tends to tip off big, hungry birds. On the other hand, we would like to get enough footage to make short videos of the progress of the nestlings.