How to protect birds that nest in door wreath and other unlikely places

DEAR JOAN: Last year, a pair of small birds, maybe finches or house wrens, established a perfectly constructed nest in a wreath on my front door.

The door has a large window so I was able to monitor their progress. After a long wait, eggs appeared. Finally four chicks hatched.

The next day, I heard a loud thump at the door. I ran to the door only to find an empty nest and a neighborhood cat strolling down the sidewalk. My heart was broken.

I would like to avoid the same thing happening this year. I plan to remove the wreath during the nesting period, but I don’t know when that starts and ends. I hope you have advice.

Adele Tierney, Bay Area

DEAR ADELE: Well, that certainly would make anyone worried about the safety of another clutch. However, if you want to prevent this from happening again, you need to take the wreath in or move it to a safer location before the birds start nest building.

Birds can be skittish, but think how upset and confused you’d be if you were building a home and one day showed up with boards and nails, only to find the home gone, or moved across the street. You might take your building materials and go elsewhere.

If want to enjoy the birds in the nest — and they haven’t started building yet — then look at ways to make the area safer. Perhaps raise the height of the wreath, putting it out of reach of a cat (and that would mean moving it pretty high), and remove chairs, tables or other decor that would give a cat a leg up.

Some birds actually like to build their nests close to humans. They don’t like or trust us, but so don’t a lot of other birds and creatures, and the nesters get a measure of protection from being near humans.

Your visitor sounds more like a house finch than a wren. Finches are well known for building nests on ledges, vents, hanging planters and even in the ivy. They create cup-shaped nests made of thin twigs, plant stems, leaves, strings, wool and feathers. The house wren is a cavity nester, using hollows in trees, nesting boxes and old woodpecker holes.

Mating season has begun for most creatures, but if no one has returned to the wreath, take steps now to prepare for them, or remove the wreath and let the birds find a safer place.

DEAR JOAN: Last year I tried growing kale, but something ate the leaves before I could harvest it. They ate the edges of the leaves and just left the spine, or whatever you call it.

What insect would do this? I never saw any signs of bugs on the leaves or around the plants, but they ate all the plants this way pretty quickly.

I love kale and would like to try again this year, but I need to know what pesticide I should use to kill the hungry bugs before they get all of my kale.

Denise J., Livermore

DEAR DENISE: It’s not the bugs you need to get rid of it, it’s the birds. Finches perch in the middle of the kale leaves and peck away at the tasty greens until nothing remains but that center stem.

You don’t need to resort to deadly measures. Just hang some reflective objects — streamers, old CDs, tethered Mylar balloons — in your garden bed and those should keep the birds at bay.