Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2013 - 11

lems of a sort. Birds were taking
advantage of whatever part of my
yard I neglected for a few days to nest
in it. Once I discovered a nest – easy,
because the parents issued alarm calls
when I came near it – for the duration
of the egg incubating/nestling rearing
cycle they wanted that part of the yard
to be off limits. My heart was with
them; I wanted the babies to fledge
successfully. But we weren’t having
much luck. So far as I know, only the
wrens whose nest I found under the
propane tank’s cap on April Fool’s Day
have managed to complete the cycle. I
was ecstatic when a cardinal built a
nest outside my bedroom window in
early May. When mother wasn’t on
the nest I took pictures, first of the

Its frantic parents stuck right with it.
It was hopeless, but I intervened
anyway, went out, caught the baby
(easily) and returned it, squawking, to
the nest. By the time I got back into
the house, it had already left the nest
again, flopping and fluttering in a new
direction, down the hill this time. One
parent stayed with it; the other desperately searched the trees for caterpillars
to feed it. For awhile, there was a lot of
noise from that part of the yard. Then
there was only silence, and a sense of
the great empty gawp of the universe.
This morning on my daily garden
inspection tour, I discovered that, in
the night, the groundhog had
expanded his sphere of influence. A
sunflower 20 feet from the entrance to

It’s such a chancy world, the real one...
Nothing’s guaranteed... Everything teeters on
the brink, like that foolish baby cardinal. It’s
almost hopeless, when you think about it –
and yet so inspiring.
three eggs, then of the babies as they
went from near-naked to somewhat
feathered. Then, a few days before
they should have fledged, I noticed a
shed snakeskin draped across the
limbs of a nearby rhododendron. A
few hours later, two of the babies
were missing. The next morning, the
mother cardinal was on the nest, but
not on the baby, who was pirouetting
on its rim, fluttering its inadequate
wings experimentally. I knew what
mother wanted – the same thing that I
wanted – which was for baby to cut it
out and get back under her. But baby
was oblivious. A few hours later I
heard a commotion in the front yard.
Sure enough, baby had decided it was
time to fly, though it couldn’t. It
wheeled and hopped and tossed itself
in the air and fluttered to the ground.

its bunker had been destroyed; nearby
milkweed leaked white sap down
denuded stalks. As I looked for further
evidence, a pair of indigo buntings
nesting in a garden bed below the
deck set to tick-tick-ticking. Last year,
clearing a path in the raspberries, I
accidentally exposed a bunting nest
and caused its demise, so this year I’ve
been trying to be especially mindful of
them. I retreated to the house, then
took a circuitous route down to the
garden shed, where I built an elaborate fence I hoped would leave the
groundhog no choice but to go into
the trap, then baited it generously with
cantaloupe, lettuce and sunflowers.
I haven’t watched the movie
“Groundhog Day” for years, but I
remember the gist of it: when Bill
Murray doesn’t do it right the first (or

the fifth) time, it’s back to square one
for another go. That’s where I am with
the groundhog. The first day, I set the
Havahart but failed to bait it. The trap
was sprung – and empty – the next
morning, dirt flung at the trap door.
The second day I baited the trap, but
didn’t do the necessary work of
guiding the groundhog toward it. This
morning I took the time to do that, I
hope adequately. I wish he’d come out
early and explore it. He won’t, though;
he’s on his own schedule. Waiting, I
am reminded – how many times have I
had this illustrated for me, in a lifetime? – that the natural world is a
harsh taskmaster. Harsher than the
makers of a movie. Bill Murray eventually gets it right and gets the girl,
having lost nothing – not even time –
learning his lesson. Whereas I have
lost both time and sunflowers.
In the real world, you can lose –
again and again – the cardinals are
reminding me. The same pair, I’m
suspecting, built a second nest, in a
bush near the smokehouse. When I
went down there to weedeat, their
alarm calls alerted me. The female,
when I discovered the nest, was
hunkered down so far that only her
tailfeathers showed above its rim. For a
few days thereafter, whenever I passed
too close, the male, watching from
somewhere, warned me away. Then
one day he didn’t. That nest too, for
whatever reason, is now abandoned.
Two nests lost. All that work and
care and worry, with nothing to show
for it. And yet, last evening, at the
edge of the woods, I heard Bill
Murray’s stand-in singing. I suspect his
mate is again engaged in nestbuilding. So far, the indigo bunting
nest is intact, and they’re defending it.
It’s such a chancy world, the real one.
There’s nothing like it. Nothing’s guaranteed; no plot has a predetermined
ending. Everything teeters on the
brink, like that foolish baby cardinal.
It’s almost hopeless, when you think
about it – and yet so inspiring. 
September/October 2013 | 11
Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2013

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