Memory Time

Trail Wood #81 Earl Plato

I was a child but with a growing curiosity of nature. I saw a nest nestled in a forsythia bush. A small yellow bird had built a nest there. My father told me that it was a Yellow warbler. The nest was higher than I could look into but big brother Bill lifted me up and I saw three small egg resting in the bottom. Then something happened I haven’t forgotten. Enter a cowbird. These birds lay eggs in the nests of birds like the diminutive warblers. Now there were four eggs in the warbler’s nest. Three small and one large. Brother Bill lifted me up again to confirm the count. The late Bert Miller, Fort Erie naturalist, told my father Perc to remove the cowbird egg. If not the cowbird hatches and grows and grows dominating the warbler nest and the smaller hatchlings. The little warblers are often the losers. The cowbirds are parasitic. Free loaders and absent parents they let other smaller species do their work for them. Some one my father or brother Bill deposed of the cowbird egg. The result? Three lively yellow warblers. Right or wrong to interfere with nature?