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born nature writer, world- ’ class bird painter and authority on bluebirds.
My call to Julie in Ohio confirmed that the nocturnal squirrel that sails through the air is a well-known bluebird predator. They seek nest boxes because their preferred hollows in trees for daytime sleeping are becoming rare.
Inge Braune of Delaplane also visits our vendor's stall to "talk birds.’’ She reported a predator on the young of purple martins new to me. The American crow! Braune watched as a crow reached in, pulled a nestling martin from the nest box and ate it.
This news was not startling. Crows are know nest robbers and make off with eggs and young of other birds when they want a change of diet from vegetable gardens, orchards and road kills. Crows are omnivores; they will eat anything.
It is also well known that crows have become increasingly common and have figured out that a man with no gun is no threat at all. Crows are smart, probably the smartest of all birds.
One of the pleasurable aspects of being a naturalistwriter is that a wide circle of well-informed friends are available to me. These friends know more than I could imagine on a variety of nature subjects.
Robert Kluttz, an old friend from Charlotte, N.C., has great knowledge of purple martins. Bobby, as he is known to me, has said that if a snake or owl robs a purple martin colony, the swallows will abandon nest boxes or gourds and not use them again.
So what is Inge Braune to do? Her boxes are man-made, one of those box-like structures with multiple compartments. Unfortunately, the maker of the nest box had provided perches that the
See SQUIRREL, Page A8
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