A bad year for birds...

Over the past several years we've had the pleasure of watching families of birds get raised in two different cedar bird houses in our yard. Last year our Eastern Bluebirds raised a brood and them lay a second clutch of eggs. It was the first year they’ve laid two clutches. We left for a week at the beach, expecting to find newborns when we returned. We found the eggs gone, instead...

Why do bird's eggs disappear? We suspected a young boy in the neighborhood, but we didn't know for sure. And we forgot about it. This year the bluebirds moved back into the their house and the tree swallows moved into the other house.

The bluebird laid eggs. The eggs disappeared. There'd been a hard frost. We though maybe the eggs froze. More eggs appeared. They also disappeared. It was a puzzle.

The tree swallows had more luck. They hatched babies. Then we got up one morning and the house door was open and little pieces of the nest were scattered across the back yard. A raccoon, perhaps. Or maybe a cat. I can fix that for next year by putting a bungee cord around the house to hold the door shut.

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Today I think I figured out where my eggs went. We can home from a trip to town and looked out the back door to see a five-foot snake with its head in the house.

Snakes don't generally bother me a great deal. I'd just as soon let one get away as kill it. That one was different. But unfortunately I couldn't get across the yard quick enough. It escaped into the high weeds that border the yard.

So now I have this winter to decide how to keep snakes out of my bird houses...