Helpful Birds By Pat Gibson, April 1987

Lots of critters have a purpose here in the greater scheme of things natural. The bat may not be one of your favorite flying things, but it eats a lot of bugs in its nightly flight. Spiders and wasps are not really leaders in the popularity contests, but they do prey on many other less desirable critters.  One of the more popular birds that is a predator is the    purple martin.

I saw quite a few of them flying out by the high school the other evening. They have a sharply angled wing with iridescent blue black tops and light buff under wings. They swoop and dive up and down especially over areas that have lots of mosquitoes. They were working on the damp area in front of the band hall that day.

Lots of folks encourage them by putting up large bird apartment houses for the martins. The martin is a very sociable bird and wants to have lots of neighbors. I have seen the houses with as many as five stories on them. The have to be on a high pole to keep the cats away. Also you have to be able to take them down and clean out the debris each fall, so they are not the easiest bird to accommodate. But some folks thing they are worth the effort.

I have a bird I encourage that doesn't take nearly the effort and still eats its fill. It is the wren. Now in my bird book it looks very much like a canyon wren, but I think is just a    house wren. It is brown and gray with a long beak. It is a small bird that loves to eat spiders and other bugs. The wren nest on a piece of cardboard we tacked to the floor    joists of the balcony. The pair clean it out each spring and build a new nest. They aren't like the martins that need maid service. They like to hang up side down on the beams of the balcony much to the amusement of the crew. In general, I think I'll stick to the wren for a resident bug catcher. He doesn't eat as much as the martin, but you don't have to pay it as much either.

Some of our changes in nature are more costly than others, but that's another story.

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