Friday, May 22, 2009Bird Family
A beautiful morning with a tragic moment for one of our baby birds. I just took the kids to the bus stop and brought Eva to the front porch to take a look at the yard, when a fury of birds circled around me chirping loudly and alarming. There were about six adults and I knew behind me above the front door was the bird nest with 3 mature baby birds. I stood still as the mother bird came about 3 feet from my face and squawked terribly, only then did I think to turn around to check the nest which was now empty. To my horror I looked down to see Eva with a baby bird in her mouth. I found myself screaming out wildly just as the mother bird did. Peter and Sara came around from the garage and found me. Peter spotted another baby(#2) out in the yard and gently caught it and put it back in the nest, but we couldn’t find #3. #2 stayed perched in the nest alone for about 3 hours and then flew away. I have felt sad about this and have reflected back when the mother bird carefully built her nest in about 3-4 days and then laid 3 tiny blue robin eggs. We had fun getting the ladder out and checking the nest from time to time to check on the eggs when the mom took a rare break to get something to eat. The mother bird sat and sat and sat just like Horton day after day, in the rain and wind and cold and all through the night. They hatched several weeks later, tiny hairless/featherless and with their eyes closed. We watched these young hatchlings grow day by day and it was really cute to see them lift their fragile heads up with beaks open waiting for food. I sometimes saw daddy perched beside the nest feeding mama. The babies had grown and taken over the nest, just this morning as I looked at them through the glass window I knew they would soon take their first flight. I hope this would have been more of a natural process instead of being frightened out. Eva was completely calm in every way and only doing what dogs naturally do. The baby bird #1 was easy prey as it made its first clumsy flight right down under Eve’s nose.
