OUR OBVIOUS NESTING BIRDS

     Five kinds of larger, more obvious, common and adaptable birds nest in our suburban neighborhood in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  Those five species are purple grackles, mourning doves, American robins, northern cardinals and gray catbirds.  All these species are native to much of North America, and each kind has its own lifestyle, which allows them to live together with a minimum of competition for food and nesting places.
     Every year, the grackles form a nesting colony of about twelve pairs in the numerous arborvitae trees.  Those dark birds, with the beautiful purple sheen in their feathers, arrive here early in March and immediately start checking the cedars for nest sites.  And between "house-hunting" they feed on local invertebrates, especially on lawns, and eat grain at bird feeders.
     All day, every day, through March, April and May, grackle pairs are busily devoted to nursery preparations, incubating eggs and feeding young until those offspring fledge their cradles toward the end of May.  That group of parent grackles create a hub-bub of activity as they shuttle food to their youngsters in their open-cup nests.  And occasionally grackle parents have to fight off crows who would eat the eggs or young of grackles.  
    A couple of pairs of mourning doves each have two nurseries of young at the same time through summer, with the first clutch of two babies in March and the last pair of offspring in September.  We hear the males' gentle cooing all spring and summer.  These doves hatch their chicks in the sheltering boughs of spruce trees.
     Some pairs of doves make their own nests of twigs and grass, but those cradles are flimsy affairs that could easily fall apart in strong winds, dashing eggs or young to the ground.  Other pairs use the abandoned cradles of other birds, which prove to be more sturdy.  
     Mourning doves, like all their family, have two clutches of young at once to maximize their rate of reproduction.  When a pair of chicks is half-grown in one nursery, their mother lays two eggs in another nest.  And while one parent regurgitates and feeds the older youngsters a half-digested porridge of seeds, the other parent incubates the eggs, or small young, in the other nest.  Each pair of doves switches back and forth between their nurseries all summer, putting out a pair of young every month, if their is no accidents or predation from crows, grackles and other creatures.
     Every year, two pairs of American robins nest in shrubbery or small trees in our neighborhood.  Robins arrive here by early March and I hear the males' lovely songs toward the end of that month.  And, sometimes, I see the males fighting along the borders of their adjacent territories, though nobody gets hurt. 
     By mid-April, female robins are busily building open-cup nests of mud and grass in the forks of woody vegetation.  It's interesting to watch them gathering those materials and making trip after trip to their nurseries to form them.  When their cradles are ready, each female robin lays four lovely, blue eggs in her well-formed creation.  And the young robins fledge toward the end of May, if they survived predation.  But even after they leave their nurseries, young robins, and other kinds of young lawn birds, are subject to the predation of crows, hawks and house cats.  But many of those birds survive to adulthood.
     Two pairs of striking northern cardinals raise young in shrubbery in our neighborhood.  We hear the males singing cheerily from the tops of tall trees as early as warm February afternoons.  But I have yet to find the twig and grass cradle of a cardinal hidden in the bushes.  However, I am not purposefully looking for them.  I do see recently fledged cardinals and identify them by their dark beaks rather than the red ones of the adults.  In summer, cardinals consume invertebrates and seeds, and come to bird feeders.
     Two pairs of gray catbirds arrive here around the beginning of May.  I usually hear the males' quiet, melodious singing before I actually see the birds.  Somber as the shadows they nest in, catbirds raise young in shrubbery and feed them invertebrates.  It's interesting to see catbird parents on lawns, like robins, looking for food. 
     These adaptable kinds of birds have adjusted to life in the suburbs.  The world is full of adaptable species that make do among our activities, which is good for them, and us.