A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Rachel's Nest

Rachel bought a hanging plant day before yesterday and hung it in her entryway. By yesterday afternoon a little brown bird had made a home for her babies in it!



She was still working on it when I was there.

It's gonna be so easy to watch these babies!
I'm so excited!

What an exciting novelty! Brennan is just going to love having his own personal bird nest, so he can count the days till the eggs hatch & watch the babies grow!

I assume that Rachel has already resigned herself to NOT having a hanging plant on her porch, but having a hanging bird family there, instead! (It'd be sort of hard to water the plant without mommy bird getting her nose out of joint!)

I really hope that the mommy will be content once she realizes that she may be raising her little family in a high traffic zone! Best of luck with this adventure, Rachel!

Me, too.
This is the entryway where the plant is hanging.
Notice skateboard, scooter, bicycle and 6 year old boy.


Rachel said when they went out this morning the mommy bird was hanging onto the mortar that sticks out between the bricks, screaming at them.

That is too cool Cindy! So does Rachel like gardening as much as you do?

Looks like a house sparrow nest.
She can still water the plant. just a little at a time or from underneath somehow.
We have barn swallows, starlings and house sparrow nests on the porch and soffit where my store is. The store next to me has the barns right over her door. Very high traffic retail spot.
I did see a baby swallow poke his head up this morning.

Thats so exciting for Brennan to watch

That is sooooooo funny!

Oh, yeah!


I told her that, but she won't water it.
She's afraid it will get the nest wet, because the nest takes up the whole pot. The plant still looks pretty good, though.


There are 3 eggs in the nest now.

You can only see one in this picture because we couldn't get the camera at a good angle to get them all in the picture. The mommy bird wasn't real thrilled with us, either, so we didn't want to be at the nest any longer than we had to...10 seconds!

Aw, that is so cool! My that momma bird works fast!

Awww, that's so neat....

Does Rachel have a pond Cindy?

Nope...Jeremy has tried to talk her into a pond, but she said she has seen how much I work on mine and how obsessed you can get with them, and she doesn't want one. She has that stupid pool that she has to take care of, which is dumb because you can't put goldfish in it. A large body of water needs goldfish and plants in it as far as I'm concerned!

I had a nest in my hanging basket one year and I continued to water. If the nest was out in the trees or bushes it would get rained on. Except for the plant being smushed down a little it survived and was pretty the rest of the season. Sue

That's what I told her, but she won't listen to me! :rolleyes:
I'm gonna have to go over there when she's not home and water it!

Yesterday I got pictures of the babies.

When I first looked in the nest I saw only one baby...


Then, another little head popped up...


These babies hatched a few days apart.
There is still an egg in the nest that hasn't hatched.

Rachel says that there are several birds taking care of the babies. She said the birds bring food to the brick planter beside the entrance...they lay it down and the mother comes to get it. Kind of a relay thing going on.

Awww, hi babies!

Welcome to the world little baby birds! How cute!

Oh, this is freaky.

Notice the mortar between the bricks in this photo...



The mortar is like that because it's a Spanish type house, and when they bought it there was ivy climbing up a major portion of the house (it was beautiful)...but Jeremy removed all of it because he was afraid snakes would get in it. I told them they were crazy.

OK...last night about 10pm Rachel and Jeremy went out to sit in the entryway after the kids were in bed. Rachel saw something on the mortar by the nest, and then it started moving down the wall into a big plant RIGHT BESIDE JEREMY'S CHAIR! It was a copperhead almost 4' long, which is a HUGE copperhead here...the biggest one I ever killed at the farm was 4' 1" long, and I killed hundreds of them there.

It had eaten the egg that was in the nest (the one that didn't hatch). The baby that was left wasn't there, so it must have left the nest yesterday evening. Rachel said she didn't think the snake ate it, because she didn't see a bulge in the snake anywhere.

I hope that baby bird made it and it left early!!!!!

Ewwwwwwwwwww!
I could never live in a state that had that stuff..
It would just creep me out so bad...
(I love snow storms)

Those babies are sooooooooo cute..

I'd be freaking trying to get into the house if i saw that!!!!!!
Snakes and i do not get along!

I hope it didn't get the baby...

I'm not neccessarily "scared" of snakes, but that would have scared the pants off me!

We have mostly rattlesnakes here in the Nashville, Tn area. On Grandfather Mountain, NC where my family has owned a cabin for over 5 generations, it is mostly Copperheads. We killed 20 Copperheads in one week when I was a teenager.

UHHHHHHHHH Weezie dear...
you DO live in a state that has them!!!
We have numerous rattlers here - in the mountains just about 1/2 mile from our street. As a matter of fact, we have friends that live on the road leading up to the mountains and they've gotten rattlers in their garage numerous times! :p

There is a STATE PROTECTED DEN of rattlesnakes in the mountains here just down the road - some people wanted to develop an area there, but couldn't because of the snakes!

That's is freaky Cindy....I'd hate that. I tried to find my snake in the shower story but I think it must've been deleted ......do you remember that at all?

You had a SNAKE in your shower???
No...I didn't see that one!