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The
Wonders I See
Peggy
Fasciani shares another bird-related insight, this one gained from
John K. Terres
Another of Helen Manson Andrews’ favorite authors, John
K. Terres, in his book The Wonders I See, wrote about
the attachment birds have to their mating and nesting places. I
quote Mr. Terres:
I think that one of a friend’s most fascinating bird-banding
projects was the testing of the homing instinct of a male rough-winged
swallow. John discovered a pair of these birds nesting
in a 3-inch drainpipe in a concrete wall of a bridge that spanned
a creek
near his home. The pair of adult birds were busy going
in and out of the hole to feed the young ones in the nest. On
June 15,
he caught the male in a net as it came out of the nesting hole. He
banded the swallow, got in his car and drove with it four miles
away. There he released it, then drove rapidly back
to
the nesting hole to watch. It had been fifteen minutes
since he had released the bird and dusk was settling down, when
the
male swallow came back and entered the nesting hole.
Three days later, he decided to give the bird an even greater
test. John
had planned a birding trip to New Milford, Delaware. He again caught
the male swallow as it came out of the nest hole. Enroute to New Milford,
about thirty-two
miles south of the swallow’s nesting place, he released it. The
time was about seven o’clock in the morning. At seven o’clock
in the evening, when John returned home, he discovered that the male swallow
had
returned
to
its nest hole.
I guess that proves my naivete when I trapped an English Sparrow
(House Sparrow) who was sitting on a nest in one of my bluebird
houses at Secor’s
Farm on Robinson Lane, put the sparrow in my car, drove to Old
Hopewell Road and released it. I should have known that the
sound it made as it flew from my hands was equivalent to a "bird
laugh." Even though the English Sparrow is not protected,
I can’t bring myself to harm them - so what are we to do? The pugnacious little buggers!
Wings
Over Dutchess, February
2005
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