RIVER CITY JOURNAL: HOW, EXACTLY, DO YOU TELL A BIRD SHE'S MADE A BIG MISTAKE?

Once again, the grapevine wreath hanging on our back door has attracted a nest builder.

Unfortunately, that's the door we use every day to get in and out of our house.

Yes, we have a front door. But that door, the one facing the street, is for door-to-door salespeople. And it hasn't been opened in so long I'm not sure I know how to get the dead bolt, safety chain and doorknob lock undone before any soliciting visitors give up in disgust and go away.

Pretty handy, that front door.

There's a grapevine wreath on the front door too. An intelligent nest builder would study the situation, thankful that there are so many on-the-door wreaths to choose from. A smart bird would look at the in-and-out traffic of the back door and the day-to-day inactivity of the front door and make a good choice.

As much as I like birds, I have to admit they don't always make good location choices for their nests.

When we lived on a busy downtown street a few years ago, we had a grapevine wreath on the only door that went outside. We had a nest builder there too. It turned out to be a house finch. That was the same year a pair of pigeons chose our second-floor balcony for a nesting site.

Last year, a perfect nest took shape in our back-door wreath. The interlaced grass, leaves, laundry lint and feathers looked a lot like the nest the house finch had built downtown, so we assumed another pair of finches was responsible again. We are swamped with finches at our house. They've become almost as numerous as the sparrows. Goodness knows, the world has enough sparrows.

Last year's nest was vacated shortly after it was constructed. Birds may make dumb choices about where to build a nest, but at least they are smart enough to abandon high-traffic areas before it's too late.

Until this year, that is.

This year, the nest builders chose the top of the back-door wreath instead of the protected middle part. A few long strands of grass were positioned to create a framework. Much of the effort of getting the dried grass to the building site was wasted. We noticed the grass on the back stoop long before we figured out a nest was under construction on the wreath.

Little by little, the nest took shape. If you've never seen nest building up close, you would be quite amazed at the complexity and artistry.

Keep in mind that birds have brains about the size of an eraser on a short No. 2 pencil. In addition to nest building, those tiny brains have to store information about migration to distant places like South America, food gathering, egg incubation and the care and feeding of freshly hatched birds that are 95 percent mouth and 100 percent hunger. I know that's 195 percent, but that's a newborn bird for you.

Coming from the garage the other night, my wife spotted the bird responsible for the nest.

It's a mother cardinal.

By the way the bird acts, you can tell she's ready to lay eggs and prefers a little peace and quiet something we can't provide unless we start walking all the way around the house to the front door, which is a bit of a problem, because neither my wife nor I can remember where we put the front-door key.

I've wondered if switching the two wreaths put the back-door wreath on the front door and the front-door wreath on the back door would be acceptable to the rust-gray cardinal mother. Then I remember that pea-sized brain, which is the same brain that told her it was OK to build a nest on the back-door wreath in the first place.

My wife was almost able to touch the cardinal on her nest. Whenever we go near the door, the bird flies over to the hedge a few feet away and scolds us.

I can imagine what that bird thinks about us, assuming she has any brainpower left to give us a second thought.

"People! All they do is go in and out. In and out. Don't they have nests to build? Mouths to feed? No. All they do is flap my door back and forth. Silly humans!"

I hope we can reach some sort of accommodation with the cardinal who nests in our wreath. I'd also like to see a little support from her mate, who keeps his distance from a safe perch inside the wild hedge along the back of the house.

But I fear the worst. At some point, the mother cardinal surely is going to cut her losses and start building a new nest in the wild hedge with the hundreds of sparrows, finches, titmice, nuthatches, chickadees, doves, blue jays, hummingbirds and cardinal kinfolk.

Or she may move to a new neighborhood.

I'll bet the wreaths aren't half as nice.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.