Magpie Nest Update

It has been a few weeks since I wandered down toward the magpie nesting area near where I live. I was surprised to see that the willow tree, including the nest has been chopped down by our city parks maintenance crew. If you look at the photos from the past blog, you can see that the tree was infested by some type of black fungus. I presume that this fungal infection is what the maintenance people are trying to get rid of. That is a good thing, I guess.

Willow Tree after crew trimmed out the disease along with Magpie nest

    I just wonder why it could not have been taken care of before the magpies had their nest building activities complete. Hopefully they had time to find a suitable site for a new nest and were able to rebuild. I hope that the tree removal crew did not chop down the tree with malice in their hearts for the magpies. I know that these raucous birds can be a bit annoying but they do have their place in our ecosystem as a cleanup crew.
     The rest of the lake is fairly normal although the water level is very low. I see that a pair of Red-necked Grebes have built a nest where they had one last year. Geese have already hatched their broods; about a month earlier than last year.

New Canada Goose Family

     We watched the muskrats  mating a couple days ago. Muskrat love, isn't there a song about that?
Captain and Tennille, it is on you-tube.

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