Nest Repairs

In one of the Miss Read Fairacre books, Miss Read discovers that some local sparrows have made a nest on the roof over her front door.  At first she is charmed and then Mr. Willet, the local handyman, points out that the birds may use her front step as their toilet.  He volunteers to remove the nest to aid in relocation but Miss Read refuses, worried that the birds won’t find their nest.  Mr. Willet shakes his head at her kind heart and Miss Read ruefully begins to use the back door, so as not to bother the birds.

I thought of this story when I noticed a pair of birds making their nest in my roofline, having snuck under the eve where a piece of the trim siding had come off during a wild storm.   In the immediate aftermath of that storm, I had made a few calls for someone to replace the broken piece.   Homes in my corner of New Jersey had far more damage than that and I could never get a firm hold on a repair and so the problem lingered for far longer than it should have.  

Then a pair of birds tucked under the trim and built their nest along my roofline.  I’m not as kind as Miss Read and feared birds in the roof may be followed by squirrels in the attic so I doubled down on my efforts to get the trim repaired.  That happened over Spring Break.  For a few days, the birds perched on the roofline, unable to get inside.  In my guilt, I averted my eyes.  They’ve since found a new location for their nest and I have the satisfaction of a tidy new piece of trim.

That’s happy!