Phoebe Watch

One of our favorite birds is the Eastern Phoebe—a very sweet little critter with an ominous family name: Tyrant Flycatcher. I don’t know about the tyrant part, but I sure do appreciate the flycatcher part. These birds help keep the local bug population in check. The phoebe is a small, gray bird—rather dull looking. Its call is also unexciting—a repetitive, raspy rendition of its name.

Phoebes nest around manmade structures. I built a house with a large roof overhang, and the phoebes have nested under the eaves for many years—often rehabbing last year’s nest. They are acrobatic bug catchers, nabbing bugs on the wing (the flycatcher part). They perch on an open branch, bobbing their tail perkily up and down; then suddenly fly off and nab a morsel out of mid air.

When the babies (usually about four of them) are in their rapid growth stage, we watch the furious feeding activities of mom and dad. In the late morning and afternoons the parents fly many sorties, every minute or so, carrying food to their offspring.

This year I was able to get photos of the babies in the nest—watching them grow ever larger and marveling at how the four of them managed to crowd into that tiny cavity. We got to know them and came to feel like they were family members.

One morning the nest was empty. They had fledged. We could see activity in the surrounding trees, as the parents continued to feed the unskilled flyers for a few days. That was in June. Would the parents start a second brood? Sure enough, in a week or so there were four new eggs in the nest. Now I could get my first photos of hatchlings!

I watched as mom sat on her eggs. Phoebes are a little tame, seeing as how they choose to nest so close to buildings. Mom was often absent (the weather was warm enough that the eggs didn’t require her constant presence) so I could sneak in for a photo a couple of times a day. One morning the eggs had hatched and four featherless fetuses greeted me. So tiny and vulnerable!

I eagerly kept watch and took photos over the next couple days. One morning another empty nest greeted me. This was not the result of fledglings leaving the nest. Some critter had made a meal of them. My best guess is a snake dined on our birds. I have seen (and chased away) a black snake climbing the wall of the house, aiming for a phoebe nest.

This was a shocking and sad event, but that’s nature. The food chain occurs only at the cost of many lives. Who am I to question Mother Nature? Is the death of a sweet phoebe any sadder than all the bugs that it eats? Well, maybe to me, but to the surviving bugs it’s quite another thing. I could almost hear the celebratory shouts of the local insects... after all, fewer tyrants would be chasing them.