The Baby Bird Story

Well, after the massive amounts of rain that we had last week, I awoke Thursday morning to find yet another bird nest in the front yard after the storms. Not unusual; I've lost count of the number of nests that have fallen out of the oak tree out front this summer. It's been a bad summer for bird housing. Midget and I find them all the time on our walks. Usually I leave them unless it'll be awhile before the yard guy comes. This one I had planned to leave, but I did have to walk by it to get the water hose so I could take care of the plants on the porch. I was quite surprised when a very large mouth popped up out of the mangled nest and began chirping away.

This is the first time I've found one of the nests on the ground with the residents still inside! I got closer for a look and started noticing the adult birds up in the trees making awful noises to deter me from eating their young. Turns out there were two little fledglings still in the nest who had amazingly survived the fall. So I had to figure out how to get them off the ground so the neighborhood cats wouldn't eat them. (I didn't want to have to rescue another injured one from a cat.) I'm quite thankful I have those coconut hanging baskets now! I scooped up the babies, nest and all, and put them in the basket, which I then hung in the tree.

I peeked in on them a few times on Thursday afternoon and Friday before I left to go visit Laurie and Justin (another blog entry to come), and the babies were doing great! I named them Icarus and Apollo (fell from the sky and I've been reading the Percy Jackson books).

I got back today and was sad to find an empty nest. I kinda figured they'd died and Mom had disposed of them so the bugs wouldn't be attracted to the yard. But I noticed the birds were still trying to keep me away from the tree, so I started looking in the bushes nearby - and sure enough, one of my babies had feathers on his wings (but was still bald and fuzzy up top) and was perched in the bushes!

I only saw one, but I think that both my babies survived and will fly off! I'm so glad that I had a few more babies survive the summer heat and the weather that has been destroying the nests this year :)