Excuse me if I sound a bit off, but I’m suffering from actual empty nest syndrome.
This year a gray catbird made a nest in the viburnum next to my deck, just outside my kitchen window. It was just about at eye height, barely 15 inches and a closed window away from where I drink my morning coffee. For several weeks, it was a busy, busy place – and almost like having new roommates.
Catbirds are common and lack flash, but they do have a certain elegance with their velvety gray backs and black cap. Boy, can they sing, up and down the scale, mimicking other birds and animals. Loudly. The male’s song can last for up to 10 minutes, according to the experts at the Cornell bird lab. Trust me that they can talk for much longer – but more about that later. And let’s get this out of the way: Catbirds do not lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. That’s cowbirds. Catbirds, based on Cornell’s website and what I could see, are very attentive parents.
This all began, as it does, with a nest, which looked quite sloppy at first. But over the course of a week, it took on more and more of a roundish, conical shape, and then the female settled in.
She didn’t seem much bothered by my comings and goings inside the kitchen or on the deck. She even ignored the hound as he rampaged after a squirrel in the yard. Perhaps she felt protected by us. But I worried about scaring her off and taped several pieces of notebook paper up against the window, which has no shades. The notepaper made me look like a lunatic to anyone who came in the house, but I felt I was doing my part to avoid startling her. I have no idea if she cared, but when I peeked through an uncovered corner her small black eye was usually riveted on the window.
We were all waiting for eggs. And finally, after almost two weeks, when she was off feeding, I stood on a chair to look down into the nest and discovered four bright, bright turquoise eggs – almost dayglow compared to robin’s eggs. Meanwhile, the male was often around, trilling and warbling his heart out. Bragging no doubt.
Now, species on both sides of the window were on watch for babies. I was impressed with the birds loyalty to the nest through heat and storm and dark and wind. Was she ever sick of the whole ordeal of reproducing? (I hear ya, sister…) What thoughts were in her head? Were our comings and goings a threat or interesting, just as her life entertained all of us in the house? Was she regretting her choice of location, or loving it?
I didn’t actually see the babies hatch. I came home from a trip to three fuzzy heads sticking out of the nest. No clue what happened to the fourth egg. But the adult birds were crazy busy, constantly in and out, bringing bugs and other delicious goodies. And over the next 10 days or so, the babies began to fluff out and get more impatient and louder. The nest seemed to shrink around them as they expanded.
Then, one day, the male, I think, lost his mind. He perched on the back of a chair on the deck and, with a constant glare at the slider, screamed and squawked his head off for about six hours straight.
I was worried something awful might have happened - could a raccoon or rat have gotten the babies? He was definitely provoked. He would tolerate the dog going out the slider, but got louder and agitated every time I appeared in the doorway. I called a birding friend for advice. Could a fledgling have fallen out of the nest, she asked? No, all the babies were there.
Things quieted at nightfall but next morning, he picked up right where he had left off.
Then … I went out to do some errands and when I came back, all was quiet.
So quiet, after weeks of singing and flying about. There were no birds in the nest. No peeps from the babies. No parents hovering.
I wondered if the male had been protecting the fledglings as they clambered out of the nest. I’m choosing to be optimistic that they made it. Meanwhile, the female may have already been building a new nest someplace else to hatch her second brood of the season, according to Cornell. I hear catbirds in the nearby cypress and wonder if it’s her.
My nest in the viburnum is now like an abandoned house – once so busy, now forlorn. And while I’m pleased for our fledglings, I’m bereft at their exodus. The nest is so … empty.
But I’m hoping she gives the location a five-star review and maybe she’ll return next year.
