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Bird Nest
Image by E_Journeys
The summer of 2003 was our first in Florida, but the heat and humidity were not so brutal as I had expected. We had greenery rather than heat islands. We learned to make sweat our friend.
We had come down in March. When our rental van had pulled up the driveway I marveled at a hedge garlanded with deep pink azalea blossoms. I had visited the house when my parents were still alive, but the season had been wrong each time and I had never noticed anything but holly.
Now I noticed holly and more. Seeds dropped over the years by visiting birds had caused trees to sprout within the hedge. For much of the year those trees poked through its trimmed exterior, straining to break free. They made me think of Daphne, the nymph transformed into a laurel so that she might escape Apollo's advances. With a sigh I wielded the hedge trimmer, kept the trees subdued. Until the nest.
Mary had noticed it first, or perhaps the cats did. We heard cheeps. We saw, close up, the mockingbird parents tend their young, soaring to and from a territory we only presumed to be ours. We kept the cats inside, much to their chagrin.
I promised I wouldn't trim the hedge until after the chicks had fledged. If anyone complained we'd point out that mockingbirds are protected here. But no one objected, and the trees grew. I waited until the cheeps stopped and we were sure the nest had emptied before I resumed that part of my yard work. Reluctantly.
We don't know who built the nest that remains. Other birds have explored the hedge since the summer of '03 -- sparrows, cardinals -- though we haven't heard the piping of young.
Mary tells me, "Don't trim the hedge too closely near there. Let it grow."
