{"id":715636,"date":"2026-06-20T14:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T14:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/715636\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T14:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T14:27:11","slug":"this-wildlife-drama-is-happening-right-in-my-backyard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/715636\/","title":{"rendered":"This wildlife drama is happening right in my backyard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Outdoors
The BDN outdoors section brings readers into the woods, waters and wild places of Maine. It features stories on hunting, fishing, wildlife, conservation and recreation, told by people who live these experiences. This section emphasizes hands-on knowledge, field reports, issues, trends and the traditions that define life outside in Maine.\u00a0Read more Outdoors stories here.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is a special time of year. The frenzy of migration is over. Birds have settled down to raise a family. Males are still singing territorial songs, but with less enthusiasm than they did in May. <\/p>\n

Now we\u2019re all going about our daily business, myself included. I\u2019ve been home for much of the month, ignoring all the chores I promised to do. Instead, I\u2019m taking the time to watch what\u2019s happening around my yard. It\u2019s not exclusively my yard anymore. An eastern phoebe renested above my porch door. The eggs haven\u2019t hatched yet. If they had, the parents would already be scolding me every time I drew near. <\/p>\n

An American robin is nesting on the near side of the deck. Surprising, since I\u2019ve never had two active nests on the house at the same time.<\/p>\n

Make that three. I was astonished to find yet another robin nesting on the opposite side of the house. Now I can\u2019t go anywhere in my yard without being eyed suspiciously. <\/p>\n

If I mow my lawn, I know they will flush from the nests, leaving the eggs vulnerable. I\u2019ve decided to mow in short bursts, giving them time to return and continue incubating before I make another pass later.<\/p>\n

\"\"An American robin incubates eggs in a nest built on the author\u2019s home. Two robins and an eastern phoebe nested on the house at the same time this spring. Credit: Bob Duchesne<\/p>\n

As it is, the second robin\u2019s nest was probably a good idea. Three days ago, a red-shouldered hawk swooped into the yard and grabbed a recent fledgling off the lawn. I\u2019m not sure who was more surprised, me or the robin. I had heard the raptor calling two days earlier, but figured it didn\u2019t stick around. In 26 years of living here, I\u2019ve seen only two red-shouldered hawks. Both were in migration, and neither one lingered.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not feeding birds this summer, because I\u2019ll end up feeding bears. I did put out oranges for orioles and tanagers, which both species completely ignored. Instead, downy woodpeckers have devoured each one, much to my surprise. <\/p>\n

At one point, a hairy woodpecker landed on the feeder. The downy woodpecker took exception and complained. Until now, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen a hairy and downy woodpecker quarrel. <\/p>\n

Bald eagles have been flying past my house for weeks, bound for the river to feed on alewives returning to Pushaw Lake. That feast has now concluded, but the eagles have grown fond of my lakeside pines, perching there often. A pair of young ones \u2014 last year\u2019s nestlings, for sure \u2014 have been chasing each other, trying to steal each other\u2019s catch. <\/p>\n

The common loons hate the increased level of eagle activity. They sound the alarm whenever one approaches. It\u2019s been a very noisy June.<\/p>\n

A tiny bird is one of the noisiest in my yard. Chipping sparrows are named for the little chip notes they make while foraging for food and tending the kids. They hatched their young early, and the parents have been combing the lawn for a week, chipping constantly. Their chicks haven\u2019t left the nest yet, but I\u2019ll see them next week. The fledglings will not look like their parents. They will have streaky breasts and lack the rusty cap. <\/p>\n

Yellow-bellied sapsuckers taught me something this week. They drum with an unusual pattern \u2014 a rapid staccato drum that peters out at the end, like a windup toy. A sapsucker has taken a fondness to banging on my metal mailbox, something sapsuckers everywhere like to do. I suddenly realized he wasn\u2019t drumming the typical cadence, though. He was just making noise. How could I have lived so long, and just discovered that now?<\/p>\n

A black-billed cuckoo has been calling from behind my neighbor\u2019s house for several weeks. Cuckoos are not rare, but they sure are secretive. I did not see this one, or so I thought. I happened to be out capturing video of the many red-eyed vireos that hang out in my yard. When I uploaded the footage to my computer, I was startled to see that one of the vireos was the cuckoo, directly over my driveway. <\/p>\n

\"\"A black-billed cuckoo perches above the author\u2019s driveway. Though often heard calling, the secretive species can be surprisingly difficult to spot. Credit: Bob Duchesne<\/p>\n

And so it goes. I\u2019ve done a lot of birding this month, without ever leaving home. It\u2019s very easy to take backyard birds for granted. I needed this gentle reminder that they can be quite entertaining. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m watching birds. They\u2019re watching me. We\u2019re neighbors, and in the case of the three nests, we\u2019re housemates. We\u2019ve developed relationships. They are still suspicious of me, but they\u2019ve gotten used to me. They don\u2019t flush off the nest every time I walk out the door. They just look at me and shrug.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OutdoorsThe BDN outdoors section brings readers into the woods, waters and wild places of Maine. It features stories…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[19628,79,201],"class_list":["post-715636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-engage","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}