Mite Busters!

On June 5th, Cindy heard what she thought was a "nesting song" sung by the House Finches.  The next day, twigs started appearing on the beam over our front porch--the porch we had only reclaimed three weeks before from the previous nesting experience.  On June 7th, she saw two female finches apparently fighting over the nesting material on the beam.  Or maybe it was Mama and Papa Finch finishing the nest.  By June 8th, Mama seemed to have settled into the nest and begun to incubate the eggs.  

Location, Location, Location!

We sighed and resigned ourselves to using the back door and having our happy hour on the back patio instead of on the front porch in the afternoon for at least the next month while the birds incubated and hatched their eggs.  

Finally, after about two weeks, we saw Mama Finch poking around in the nest, and a couple of days later saw two little fuzzy heads poking up above the rim of the nest and both Mama and Papa feeding the two chicks.  

By July 1st we were seeing at least three heads and hearing cheeping, but it was several more days before any of them had real feathers.  We were never sure how many eggs and chicks there were in the nest, and they just seemed to keep coming.  Finally the chicks began to leave the nest one by one.  One of the adult birds would sit in the shrubbery across the driveway or on the porch railing chirping at them.  Then both adults would fly up to the beam, fly back down, back up, back down, back up, and eventually one of the chicks would fly off with both parents.  It took several days, but by Friday at dinnertime there was only one chick left, standing on the very edge of the nest looking a bit lonely.  By the time we got up in the morning, the last one had flown.  

So we were "empty nesters" again, but we were determined to not make the same mistake we made last time:  then we waited a couple of days before we took down the nest, wore masks and gloves but no other protective gear and didn't go in and take showers right away.  Bird mites live on birds, and when there are no birds around, they look for another host:  us.  Cindy got the worst of it, with about forty mite bites, and the remaining mites continued to bite us for about three weeks before they all died off.  This time we were ready for them.  We ordered some Tyvek suits with hoods and wore them with gloves and masks.  We looked like space aliens, or something out of Ghostbusters.

Who Was That Masked Woman?

Cindy climbed up the ladder and sprayed the nest with a miticide solution several times before we took the nest down.  Then we sprayed the porch and porch furniture to make sure we got them all.  Then we went in, threw our clothes in the washer and took showers.  

Space Aliens in the Neighborhood????

Our neighbor across the street took this picture of the two of us as we were cleaning up.    

We've always tried to live by Mr. Bennett's dictum in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, "For what do we live but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?"

They're Baaaaaaackkk. Again.

It's been three weeks since the last of the fledglings left the nest the House Finches built on the beam above our front porch.  http://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2020/05/finches-leave-nest.html

Three weeks that we've been able to go in and out our front door and sit on our front porch without worrying about disturbing the birds.  And three weeks that it's taken us to get rid of the bird mites that started biting us after we took down the old nest.

We weren't very smart when we took down the old nest.  We wore masks and gloves, anticipating some debris and dried bird poop, but dislodging the nest from the plastic spikes that, far from discouraging the birds to nest there seem actually to have become a desirable design feature of their nests, created a cloud of airborne dust, debris and apparently a vast colony of hungry mites.  We have no idea which of the thousands of species of mites they were, but probably some type of bird mite, a parasite that feeds on the blood of birds.  Ravenous bird mites with no birds to feast on look for the nearest substitute, and we were it.  More about the bird mite.  And more:  http://medent.usyd.edu.au/fact/birdmite.html.

We should probably have gone inside and taken showers and washed our clothes immediately after we took down the nest, but we didn't do that and consequently have spent most of the last three weeks dealing with the itching and discomfort caused by the mite bites.  Bird mites don't survive long without birds to feed on, but it was long enough for us.

We're too soft hearted to take down the new nest before the birds lay a new set of eggs, but we're not happy they're back.

Next time we take a nest down:  full on hazmat suits.