Art Tells the Three Muskaducks His Serious Problem

When our new friend approached us the next day in the park, our former lives as Musketeers got a chance to shine through as his story unfolded and he sought our advice.

 Athos, who still thinks of himself as our leader, whispered, “I take back what I said about this guy reminding me of d’Artagnan – he’s a loser,” and started to make a move back to the brook to dive for dinner. I realized that from a human perspective that would be extremely rude -- the equivalent of mooning our new friend. 

But more importantly, I sensed his spiritual turmoil, and quacked as much to my comrades. Athos reacted to my insubordination by tucking his head under his wing. Aramis, supposedly the most spiritual of all of us, was obligated to at least try to understand, so he tuned back in to the poor man’s story.

“I agreed to go with my wife to Just For the Birds, a quaint little shop in Old Town Spring,” he said. “I was relieved to learn they had manageable, 6-foot bluebird house poles that could just be pushed or pounded right into the lawn (whew! No sweat, this is gonna be a breeze! I thought), so we bought one, along with their top of the line, super deluxe bluebird house, with reinforced entry hole and two side doors – one for observing the nesting activity through a Plexiglas shield and one for cleaning out the old nest after the baby bluebirds hatched and learned to fly.

“We sprinkled some dried mealworms on the roof of the house (hey, you guys might like those), and before we knew it we attracted a pair of bluebirds who started building a nice neat nest of pine needles in the house. My wife was thrilled, I was pretty tickled too, and now I could get back to my normal routine. Things were extra busy at the new HP.”

“Then you don’t have a problem,” interjected Aramis while Athos still pretended to sleep.

“But I do! This is just where it starts!” said our white-haired friend. (I never did get his name; let’s just call him… Art, short for d’Artagnan.)

“I’m hungry,” mumbled Athos, muffled from under his wing.

“Go on,” I said.

Art sighed heavily.

                      

“We like to watch the birds out our garden room window during meal times and from our patio when we’re just relaxing. That’s when we started to notice the fierce battle for territory around the new bluebird house.”

“Sounds like the French and the English,” said Athos, becoming more interested.

“It was pretty nasty,” said Art. “We saw English sparrows entering the house where the bluebirds had already started to build.”

“Aha!” said Athos, fully awake now, “blasted English!”

“They were building a very sloppy nest of grass, twigs, and random garbage right over the top of the nice neat bluebird nest structure. They just took over, attacking any bluebird that came near it.”

“Total lack of honor,” I quacked. “Thufferin' thuccotash!”

I knew I had messed up. It was Aramis who corrected me. “Porthos, nice impersonation of Mel Blanc there, but this is serious business. And anyway, although Mel did sound a little like your hero Daffy Duck when he said that, he was portraying Sylvester – a cat, you twit!”

I blushed a deep red, which on my green head came across as muddy brown, and hoped we could just drop it and move on.

“Guys, really,” said Art, “I’m really troubled by what I’m Googling about bluebirds and sparrows.”

“I thought we were talking about territorial warfare. What’s Googling?” asked Athos, trying to take charge and get the conversation back on a track he understood.

Art’s answer to Athos’ question is what led eventually to all of us getting Facebook and Twitter accounts, but it doesn’t deal directly with Art’s troubles, so we’ll save that stuff for later, if ever.

“I’m finding out that once a male English sparrow fixates on a nest box, he is more loyal to it than he is even to his mate, and he defends it above everything. He doesn’t even really have the same attachment to a mate that other birds do. He calls a flock of females to himself – kind of a harem – and even if they all left, he would stay with the nest box and just call more females to himself.”

“Even Porthos treats his many women better than that,” said Aramis.

At which I started to get red with anger, but stopped myself when I remembered how bad I look when my head turns brown.

 “And if bluebirds are already sitting on eggs?” I asked.

“This is where it gets really hard to look at the websites, Porthos,” Art answered. “The sparrows viciously attack and kill not only the eggs, but also the adult bluebirds. The bluebird society posts grissly pictures of this carnage on their sites so that humans won’t be tender-hearted and merciful toward the marauding English sparrows.”

“So what does the Google say is the answer?” asked Athos.

Art told us, and it’s quite controversial, but I need to wait and tell you tomorrow, because if I’ve learned anything about blogs, this post is long enough already.

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