Sharing world outdoors with animals proves tricky

I have a little dilemma on my hands and I don’t know quite what to do.

Earlier this spring, my daughters and I clipped and hacked at brush and weeds in and around a little rocky area in the yard, planning to plant a rock garden there. You know how it goes: An idea for a new garden germinates in your mind, and you begin by transforming an area from a wild weedy space to something more tidy that begins to take on the form of a nice little cultivated garden. It’s a pleasing little scenario that propels you on, brining in fill and plants, perfectly completing your vision.

Well, in our case it was one of those “it’s-too-early-in-spring-to-do-anything-else” projects, so we cut, hauled and piled the twigs and shoots to a small, 4-foot-high pile nearby, intending to burn the brush when it dried out a little.

In the meantime, wildlife has occupied the void.

The dweller of the brush pile darts about so fast we haven’t been able to identify her species. Suffice to say – as my father-in-law would – she’s an “LBB,” a “little brown bird.”

Perhaps the creature is a wren, thrush or nuthatch. Whatever her species, she appears to be preparing to nest in my brush pile, a thought which alternately thrills and horrifies me. Her nesting would be a wonderful opportunity for my girls to observe her and her offspring. On the other hand, she and her kin would make a tidy little meal for our cats, a thought not too pleasant to bear. She also threatens my progress on this new garden spot, which I find most inconvenient.

When the little bird scoped out the brush pile for her home, she knew just what she was doing. It’s located on a little mound of soil that receives sunlight first thing in the morning. There’s a little stream nearby and maple trees overhead will offer shady protection during the heat of the day. Best of all, the brush pile will offer excellent protection against predators. Thorny wild rose barbs protrude from nearly every branch. It would be a hungry – or lusty in the case of our housecats – predator indeed, who would risk entering its curious nose into her home.

Truth is, this bird is just one of the more obvious inhabitants of our yard and garden. Considering all the invertebrates and vertebrates – from the lowliest slug to the furry woodchuck – there must be thousands of critters with which we share the space. While it would be impossible to carefully consider the needs of each individual animal when implementing these new gardening spaces, we do try to consider them in general.

And we constantly teeter in the balance over creating space for life and, in the process, taking it away.

To some extent as gardeners, we decide all the time who lives and who dies. Weeding along, we decide which plants may still exist and which must succumb. In a garden of plants, it’s fairly straightforward: plants with desirable qualities stay, those that threaten their growth are eliminated. But when it comes to animal life, we may have much less say in who comes and who goes.

It’s been interesting, over time, to observe the comings and goings of various wildlife in our yard and garden. We have our share of wild turkeys, who appear to do no harm other than to leave curious tracks and plenty of droppings hither and yon. We have more than our share of deer – lovely creatures, but irritating at best with their insatiable need to munch on our most treasured plants and with the horribly destructive pock-mocked track marks they leave in their wake. On the more aesthetic side, a great blue heron occasionally visits our pond. His cameo appearances are truly a delight.

Well, this dilemma over the LBB dwelling in the brush pile is really bothersome to me. With each day that passes, the situation only worsens. She might not actually be nesting there, but it seems, she might do just that. “Why worry about one little bird?” some would ask. While it’s true that she has literally hundreds of acres of relatively uninterrupted woodland in which she could make her home, I still do worry. When it comes to plants, I can decide with lightning speed which should stay and which should go. Winged creatures – and indeed any creature with a beating heart – are somewhat mystifying to me, and therefore I find myself considering them with great care.

I will come to a decision over what to do with the brush pile, and it won’t be a thoughtless or careless one. All things considered, it’s provided a little springtime lesson for our family. After a long winter indoors dwelling in a home that is exclusively ours, this LBB has reacquainted us all with the notion that our outdoor world is shared, and that we are in the very small minority.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, 512 North Ridge Road, Montville 04941 or e-mail dianagc@midcoast.com. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.