Mid May at the Charles River Peninsula

Lady's Slipper, Charles River Peninsula, Needham, MA

Someone (I assume a Trustees naturalist?) is monitoring the CRP nest boxes. That would account for the dispossession of the house sparrow's home, pictured below.


I can't say that I feel too bad, given the sparrow's aggressiveness towards other birds and their tendency to take over. On the other hand, I had come to admire the tenaciousness of this pair.

In other nest box news: here's the house wren that has taken charge of a box on the northern edge of the property (the last two years I haven't seen wrens in the boxes until their second brood). The box is stuffed full of sticks, as you'd expect.


And the bluebirds seem to be hanging on (though I saw tree swallows in this box later). This guy has a beetle that is a little unmanageable.



The female yellow warblers continue to be as visible as their fellas. This one was interested in a spider web. She may have been snagging caught bugs, though I know some birds use spider web filaments in their nest-building.



Other CRP news. I saw blue-gray gnatcatchers for the first time on the property this year. Also red-eyed vireo. (I almost celebrated an every-vireo year, but then I remembered Philadelphia. Still a chance in September...) The yellow-throated vireos continue. The bobolinks were not present this morning.