A few days ago, a tiny wren built an elaborate nest inside my hockey equipment bag. She worked fast, completing construction within a time frame of about an hour and a half. The bag was hanging on our garage wall, and the nest consisted of a collection of leaves and twigs interwoven with one of my old skate laces. I felt bad about removing the wren’s handiwork, and I’m still not sure why she thought my sweaty elbow pad was the neighborhood she wanted to raise her offspring. (I used to hang my hockey bag in our outdoor tool shed, but the family of skunks who live underneath it complained about the smell.)
With all the attention paid to bird strikes in the air, it’s easy to overlook the issue of birds’ nests in our airplanes. For years, birds would ignore my Bonanza when performing their annual spring house hunting. But in the past couple of springs, the value of my rampside property seems to have escalated in their eyes. Location, location, location, I guess. This time of year, there always seem to be starlings hovering around with twigs and straw hanging from their beaks.
