Wren helps me read under the red umbrella this morning. I had turned the chair toward the house so that I could watch the most exciting development here at Mirador in a couple of years. The phoebes are nesting again under the deck!
They only just committed to it today. I’ve been seeing a solo phoebe flying in and out, singing from the top of the tower or the birch tree, occasionally for a couple of weeks, and was happy yesterday to see a pair flitting around the house a few times. This morning one of them flew up to the nest platform multiple times and flew off again, and then from inside the house I heard a long musical conversation, a gentle chirruping trill that went on and on as he sat on the cable swing, and she on the cat ladder, the nest platform above and between them. After that, there was steady traffic to the platform with fluff in beaks all day.
I kept my distance to give them time to get established in their apartment before settling into my outdoor living room. The old nests I had taken down when I reset the platform so it would have better protection for them, I had set in a pot on the edge of the patio. Several visits were made to pillage the old material for the new nest. I have been filled with joy and gratitude all day that these lovely, personable, flycatchers are back. Not only was I lonely in their absence the past two summers, having grown accustomed to their lively presence, I also missed their voracious appetites for flies and grasshoppers. I’m so grateful that the phoebes are back.