As you know from an earlier post we had four precious baby Bluebirds in this house. On Monday, when I was out in the garden, they were happily chirping away, I made a mental note to check on their growth, realizing they would be fledging before too long. On Tuesday morning I stepped outside to let Hannes out before I ran some errands and noticed a small head poking out the entrance to the birdhouse. My first thought was: "it's too early for those babies to be up in the opening yet." As I got a closer look my heart broke wide open; it wasn't a bird at all but, rather, a black snake looking back at me! I was horrified!! I couldn't deal with the situation right then; it was too late to rescue the babies anyway. Mr. Goodneedle was also away from home that morning. I called him a few hours later and explained what I had discovered. By the time I got home he had cleaned out the house; all that remained when he went out there was an empty nest; the snake was gone. Yesterday the two of us researched all sorts of solutions to this problem. Mr. G. came up with, what we hope will be, an effective deterrent to this ever occurring again.
He made razor-sharp bands of pokey-outy metal barbs and has strategically positioned them, in three places, up the pole. We also replaced our stove-pipe type baffle with a conical one. We've got our fingers crossed that this will work. I continue to feel so bad every time I look outside at the barren house. I feel as though I let Mama and the babies down; we hope and pray that they'll try again and give our backyard another shot.
Fingers crossed.
Life is Good!
...but, oh, so hard somedays...
