A little-known bird makes an interesting addition to your
wild garden. You can attract
it with some minor adjustments to your garden plan.
This bird isn’t a gaudy dresser like the bluebird. He’s
plain, subtle, dark grey above,
light below.
He doesn’t have the wood thrush’s lovely call or the
mockingbird’s broad repertoire.
His call is just two simple, unmelodious, unvarying
syllables.
In fact, he tends to be rather silent except in spring, when
he repeats his name,
"Feee-bee, Feee-bee, Feee-bee," in a nasal buzzing.
The phoebe is plain, but he isn’t boring.
The eastern phoebe is a flycatcher. He sits in the open on
bare twigs for long times,
just watching, occasionally wagging his tail.
Then he will sally forth on fluttering wings. If you listen,
you can hear the snap of
his beak as he takes an insect out of the air.
He seems a trusting bird. Maybe that’s because he has adapted
to using large animals,
including people, to flush insects into the air, where they’re
vulnerable to his hunting.
If you’re in the woods gathering firewood, a phoebe may
alight on a tree nearby. Watch
a deer as it searches for browse. You may see a phoebe fly
alongside and perch on branches
to watch for insects associated with the deer.
Phoebes are amazing in their ability to find flying insects
on even the coldest winter
days. Then they seek sunny places and perch low to the ground to
watch the forest floor.
Phoebes leave the north to winter throughout the snowless
South. In the deep South
they’re strictly winter birds, arriving at the Georgia-Florida
line about Oct. 1.
The last ones depart their southernmost wintering grounds at
the end of March for
nesting grounds to the north.
The earliest northbound phoebes follow the spring thaw. Edwin
Way Teale, in his
memorable Walk Through the Year, said the first Phoebe
inevitably arrived in late
March on the day the ice went out on his New England pond.
Phoebes nest from middle Georgia, where they live year-round,
northward to Canada. In
wild places, they make their beautiful creation of moss and
lichens in a niche on a cliff
face or river bluff.
They nest on manmade cliffs, too. A beam under a bridge or
porch will do. These
structures have helped phoebes expand their breeding range. Once
such birds were
mistakenly called "bridge phoebes."
I nailed a little wood platform under the eaves of my house.
A phoebe nests there every
year. If you want plans, write me at Extension Wildlife
Specialist, School of Forest
Resources, Building 4, The University of Georgia, Athens GA
30602.
Our phoebe sometimes roosts in the garage. If you have an old
outbuilding, leave the
door open, and a phoebe will often roost inside on cold winter
nights.
Hammer a few large nails into the rafters to serve as
perches. Sneak in quietly after
dark and shine a flashlight about to see if your outbuilding is
a phoebe hotel.
Look for bird droppings on the floor. You don’t like bird
droppings? Put newspaper on
the floor underneath the perch.
Phoebes are partial to wild gardens. Don’t prune off those
picturesque dead twigs.
Phoebes like to perch on them to watch for prey. Dense, leafy
branches aren’t nearly as
good for this.
Can you feed a phoebe? Not likely.
Phoebes take about 10 percent seeds and fruit, but I’ve never
seen one at a feeder. You
can help provide food by planting insect-attracting plants. And
go easy on the
insecticides.
A garden full of butterflies, moths, bees and wasps is a good
sign that other, less
noticed, phoebe food is abundant, too.
