Bluebirds and Bosnia

 (originally written in 1996)

BLUEBIRDS:. The bluebird was standing on a crooked fence post, silhouetted against the brilliant yellow green of the May pasture. The bird, with its iridescent blue feathers, and orange vest, was like some Joseph Albers color study!  I had read about bluebirds in magazines. How suburban growth and the accompanying English sparrows were reducing their numbers. How lack of nesting habitat was the key problem. How people were putting up "bluebird trails" and special nesting boxes, to try to help them revive. But I had never seen one. Now, my wife and I, the new owners of a six acre "farm" were lucky enough to have a bluebird nesting in one of the old fence posts which ringed our pasture! Of course, with all this awareness, I personally felt a certain "stewardship." How could we ensure this nesting site would be protected? At least we would know not to replace this treasure with a new, pressure treated post, when we began to fix up the pasture fence. But how could we make sure that our four cats wouldn't discover the site, which was only about four feet off the ground, with a precariously large opening? I immediately set-up a wire buffer fence to fend off the cats, and began to keep tabs on the nest site, looking in, once a day. This was easy to do, since the post was so crooked that you could see down into the nest through the opening. There were three pale blue eggs in a soft grassy nest, which swirled around them perfectly. At first, all seemed to be well, but a few days later, when I looked in, the nest was empty. There were no shell fragments, no signs of depredation. The grassy bowl sat empty. I had no idea what had happened. Had something robbed the nest? Had the parents moved the eggs? Was that even possible? Had my own activities, trying to protect the nest caused them to leave?

BOSNIA: It wasn't long after this, that I had an opportunity to travel to Europe. After a few weeks in Crete and Athens, I decided to take the famous "Orient Express" train to Budapest, Hungary. I boarded the train in Athens. We would go north to Belgrade. It was 1990, and the term, Yugoslavia was still being used. I didn't plan to stay there, but was looking forward to the seeing the landscape. The train was crammed with people, including a contingent of loud, drunken, uniformed men who announced proudly (and/or arrogantly)- that they were "Soviet military." The red stars on their hats confirmed this, and I kept my distance as they pin balled around the narrow hallway which connected all the cabins.

 I shared a compartment with a group of students, two young women and two men who looked like any group you might see hanging out on a college "quad" anywhere in America. They described themselves as "Slovenians."  They spoke beautiful English, and rapaciously quizzed me on what life was like in "the USA." I enjoyed being somewhat of a "celebrity" in the cabin, and I was cheered by their youthful enthusiasm and good nature. But at some point, there was a mention of some other ethnic group. I don't even recall whether it was the Croats or Serbs, or what, but I do recall how ugly the conversation turned. "If they weren't as stupid as pigs, we might be able to get along..." Remarks about odor and physical characteristics came spilling out. They almost seemed to try to out-do each other in their bigotry, in order to prove their own credentials as loyal members of their own ethnicity. It sounded like some kind of farce. It was difficult to reconcile the almost bi-polar group personality I was seeing. I tried to believe they were joking, or "having some fun with the American," but, no- these beautiful, young smiling faces believed what they were saying. As the sun rose, we came to the border of Yugoslavia.

BLUEBIRDS: With the disappearance of the eggs from the fence post nest, I threw myself headlong into the task of building bluebird houses. I knew they were in the area, so I was determined that there would be no shortage of nesting cavities on our property. By carefully following the directions from bird books, I placed four boxes at the recommended intervals, and sure enough, two of the boxes were soon occupied by bluebird couples. I watched through the summer as they nested, hatched their young and then worked tirelessly, bringing insects to their shrieking chicks. The greatest reward was seeing the parents, out of the nest, being followed by several juveniles.

The other two boxes had been occupied by house wrens. While not as unique as the bluebirds, they added an insectivorous presence to our garden, and were welcomed. The birdhouse endeavor seemed to be a great success. I decided that, over the winter, I would build enough houses to make sure that the blue tribe, and the wrens could thrive in our pasture. In September, however, one of the potential problems was realized. I opened the door, to leave my studio one day, and there, on the landing, was a dead bluebird. It was so perfectly centered at the top of the stairs, that it almost seemed like a warning of some kind. In spite of this morose thought, I told myself that this was simply the work of one of the cats. As sad as I felt for the loss of this one bird, I rationalized that the houses I'd built had, as nearly as I could tell, brought forth at least five new birds, and that in spite of the cats, I'd continue to encourage the bluebirds to nest.

BOSNIA: As our train pulled into the border check point, people began to seem anxious. There was some confusion as to whether we needed Yugoslav currency to buy a visa. I wasn't sure, so I went to the doorway and surveyed the platform. I saw some "official" looking people nearby, so I got off the train and walked towards them. This was a big mistake. When they caught sight of me, they came rushing towards me. Several men surrounded me, grabbing my arms. I kept saying, something about needing to "change money" but it seemed as though no English was spoken among the group. A short man in a police- like uniform approached. He was carrying a large screwdriver. He spoke English somewhat, but he immediately jabbed me hard in the chest with the screwdriver. "Where are you going?" he demanded. I explained my situation, but a look of pure sadism never left his face. He jabbed me sharply, several more times and pushed me back to the train door. "No one leaves the train!" he snapped, and I managed to get back inside, a bit shaken, confused, and with a trickle of blood running down my chest. The train sat there for over an hour, as currency exchange people came through the cars, and exchanged money at state specified rates. I was tipped to get only twenty dollars, because the money was worthless outside of the country. Indeed, when 27 hours later, our train crossed into Hungary, many people threw the money in trash cans, or on the floor of the train compartments.

BLUEBIRDS: In the summer of 1991, I had birdhouses scattered all over the perimeter of the pasture. Three of the houses, were occupied by bluebirds, and seemed to fledge young, although it was often difficult to tell. I'd see the parents feeding the yellow beaks inside the nest hole, and then I'd see the nest empty, but I rarely saw the parents with their young outside of the boxes. I was usually working, in my studio, and I would scan the boxes periodically with binoculars, but most of the time, the parents were elusive when not tending a box full of young. Wrens, tree swallows and a few sparrows occupied most of the houses. I was shocked one day to find that wrens had apparently destroyed a nest, which bluebirds had occupied. There were broken blue eggs outside the birdhouse, and wrens were busily filling it up with sticks, to construct the type of nest they prefer. I became angry and opened the nest and threw the wren nest on the ground. Several days later, sparrows were using that nesting box. I decided at this point, that I'd better do some research on the problems of maintaining bluebird boxes. It wasn't as simple as I thought it might be.

BOSNIA: In the Spring of 1991, President George Bush gave a speech about Yugoslavia. All that most people knew of the area, was that they made a cheap little car called the YUGO, and that the Olympics had been held in a place called Sarajevo. The President's speech urged that Yugoslavia "remain one, democratic country." This seemed to run counter to the events of the day, as the old communist countries seemed to be fragmenting back to pre-communist boundaries, at an amazing rate. From my experience there, however, the references to "ethnic hatred" rang true. But hadn't Tito put that all behind them? By the end of June, Slovenia and Croatia had declared their independence. War began almost immediately.

BLUEBIRDS: In the winter of 1992-93, I was much more aware of the problems bluebirds faced. I read that wrens will sometimes destroy their nests, even if they don't nest in them. Apparently, male wrens like to impress females with how many nest sites they control. I had also seen a documentary on the subject, featuring a kindly looking octogenarian, who maintained a bluebird trail. He claimed that the biggest problem was the English Sparrow. They would drive out the bluebirds, and even kill them, he claimed. So he checked his boxes every week. The reporter asked him "what happens if you find sparrows in the box?" He looked down at the ground and said "I don't want to talk about that!" As I thought of ways to solve this problem that winter, I decided that I shouldn't drive out the sparrows. They were attractive with their russet patches, and I had seen them be especially adept at catching horse flies against the barn window panes. They weren't "bad" birds to me. Surely there was some way for these various birds to share the same space. My resolve to "peacefully" solve the problem grew, when on March 13th, we had an enormous Spring snowfall. I was shocked as I watched the snow pelting down, to see a male sparrow in some branches under a pine tree. He had a white feather in his beak. In the midst of this nearly horizontal driving snow, he flew with it to a nearby bird house. In he went, and several minutes later emerged, and flew into the snow. He was nest building in the middle of a brutal storm! I had to admire this little creature.

I decided that the only answer, was to have so many bird houses, there would be no intense competition. So I produced another batch of houses, and even began to sink posts in the middle of the pasture, when I ran out of fence area. But my sympathy for the sparrows was destroyed in mid-April. The sparrows stayed north all winter, and as their numbers increased, they would claim virtually every box in the pasture, for their progeny, while the other birds had migrated south. When the blues came back, I noticed that sparrows could generally drive them out of a house, because sparrows are not territorial with one another, while bluebirds are. As a result, groups of sparrows, would swarm and harass any male blue who tried to guard a nest box. What I eventually found out, was that they would also kill the female who tried to guard the nest from within.

I was sickened when I found a dead female inside a nest box, her head pecked clean of feathers. She had tried in vain to defend the nest. This wasn't enough, however. The sparrows had then begun to defecate inside the box which contained the dead bluebird. It was caked with bird droppings. I thought of Sadam Hussein, deliberately flooding the Red Sea with oil during the Gulf War. Were sparrows exhibiting the same "evil" purpose. Are humans and sparrows controlled by the same directives? Or was this something else? I struggled to find some evolutionary "survival value" in this sparrow behavior. Would the bacteria make the body decay faster, and thus make the nest site available sooner? Did they simply want the pasture to themselves? Whatever the answer, I determined now, that I was either going to have to abandon the project, or do whatever was necessary to control the sparrow population.

BOSNIA: The war between the Serbs and Croatians was brutal and bloody. 'Ethnic cleansing" and "Balkanization" became part of the world's vocabulary. The Slovenians were spared for the most part. I thought of the young people I had met on the train. Were they involved? It took until March of 1992 for the Bosnians to also declare "independence." The mix of Moslem, Eastern Orthodox and Catholic religions was volatile. Did anyone yearn for the atheist communists to return? Or was religion just an excuse? Was it really about the "short versus the tall" or the brown eyed versus the blue? Was this all some nasty trick hidden in our DNA?

BLUEBIRDS: During the summer of 1994, I checked the boxes weekly. The sparrows would fill them with nesting material, I'd open the boxes, and take it out. The bluebirds arrived and managed to claim some of the houses. I continued to open, check and destroy the characteristic sparrow nests. One day, however, I was removing a sparrow nest, and realized I was late. There were already eggs in it. What to do? Let them go? As I pondered this, the image of the dead female blue, defiled by droppings came to my mind, as well as the image of the sparrow nest building in the blizzard. I decided I had to destroy the eggs. I reached in and picked them up, and they were incredibly warm. They sat in the palm of my hand, warm, containing the life of young sparrows, and yet, I smashed them to the ground. The act bothered me intensely for days. I was "playing God." I had broken the prime directive of Star Fleet, for God's sake! Non-intervention!

I made a decision that I simply had to get to the nest, before eggs were laid, or I'd let those boxes go. I also decided to allow some sparrow boxes autonomy. I decide I had to find some kind of non-lethal intervention. I knew that birds learned not to eat Monarch butterflies, and recognized the distinctive pattern. Perhaps I could employ a graphic pattern to "train" the sparrows to avoid certain boxes? So as an added discouragement, to complete "sparrowization" of the pasture, I painted a spidery pattern on certain houses, and in those, I religiously destroyed sparrow nests. The experiment was somewhat successful. Two boxes fledged bluebird families. One fledged swallows and several others were used by wrens. The rest were persistently occupied and defended by sparrows, and produced nothing.

BOSNIA: The bombardment of Sarajevo was severe that winter. The Serbs had the artillery, and the high ground. It was siege warfare. It was a slow strangulation, in prime time with the world watching, and looking to everyone else to solve the problem, if indeed there was a solution. There were mortars in the market place. Snipers picked off commuters. A cellist sat and played in the middle of it all, and television cameras sent the image to my studio, where the bluebirds and sparrows struggled, and I tried to find an answer.

1996: This year, I tried something new with the birds. In November, I tacked covers over the entrances to all but four of the bird boxes. It was my hope that the tribe of sparrows, which numbered thirty or forty now, would not stay around, if there were no nesting sites available to them. I knew they maintained the sites all winter, and began to breed, even before the bluebirds arrived. Indeed, most of the sparrows did leave over the winter. At the end of March, I opened only two boxes, the ones that blues had occupied last year. Sure enough, in a few days, bluebirds were there, claiming the boxes. The sparrow boxes, I would disrupt. Basically, I tried to keep them busy, nest repairing, while the blues settled in. I didn't want to drive the sparrows out, for fear they'd take over the bluebird houses. Eventually, tree swallows arrived. I opened more boxes. I allowed the sparrows unhindered nesting at this point, hoping to keep them involved in raising young, and letting the swallows and wrens have the rest of the boxes. For now, the peace is holding. The gangs of sparrows which set upon blues and swallows are gone. But occasionally I see them in small groups. They hang on the edge of nest holes and look inside at the mother blues and swallows inside. The male blue will swoop in and drive them off, and if it is only a few sparrows, they fly off. So far the blues are doing well. So far, the peace is holding, and all the tribes of birds are living in the pasture, together.

September 2000 update:
There is a cease fire in Bosnia enforced by the United Nations. American forces were deployed in 1996 for "no more than one year" according to the President Clinton. Four years later they are still there, and another war was launched against the Serbs in Kosovo. It virtually destroyed Yugoslavia- economically, militarily, and ecologically. President Milosovic is still in power.
As for the birds:
The key, it seems- is to accept that you cannot have a LOT of bluebird houses. Sparrows need lots of nesting sites close together it seems and won't occupy a box remote from other sparrows. At this point, I have very few houses open. Usually they get occupied by bluebirds, or swallows, and occasionally, I see young bluebirds with their spotted breasts being trained by adults in the fine art of catching grasshoppers...

2012 reflection:

I recognized eventually, that you can't have a lot of bluebird houses near each other. The recommended separation is 500 ft. You can't have sparrows and bluebirds nesting in proximity. Wrens are still a problem for bluebirds in any case, but the bluebirds arrive north, well ahead of the wrens, and seem to be able to defend their nest sites, once established. Predator guards are important for bluebird houses. They keeps cats and other animals from reaching inside the box.

The house pictured produced at least two broods of young bluebirds in 2011 and I'll try to update what happens this year.

As for humans...we do certain things well, like establishing "bluebird trails" in county parks. Other things, we... just...make... no... progress...