Safety Net

Day 107: Imagine, if you will, that you are a Kestrel or other small hawk with a mind to a tasty dinner of junco or sparrow. Would you not choose the easiest route to your meal over navigating a maze of tangled branches through which the smaller birds can flit with greater ease? This is why the contorted filbert is such a popular feature among my avian friends. It affords them protection from predators. A chickadee can negotiate the obstacle course with alacrity and indeed, the 'dees and the nuthatch frequently hang out deep within the interior of this wildly twisted shrub. The Steller's Jays and other larger birds must pick their way through if they wish to transit to the other side. The few times a hawk has attempted to stoop on a songbird here, it has given up all hope to sit forlornly on an outer branch while the "little people" hid in the core of its architecture. As much as I would love to add another contorted filbert to my yard, the tree has resisted every method I've tried to propagate it: cuttings of both old wood and new, air and soil layering, application of growth hormone. I suppose I could try grafting it onto native filbert stock, but that would first require transplanting and establishing the native species. No, I think the birds and I will just have to make do with this solitary "safety net."