And Then They Were Gone
Remember 8,000 kitten photos ago when there were the baby bird photos? And how I said they were never moving out? WELP. It turns out that there are two truths when it comes to the baby birds.
1. They really were super late moving out. Dr. Google says house finches usually move out of their parent's basement between 11 and 19 days. Those baby birds stuck around for a full 19 days. They pushed their luck and then some.
2. If I tell the internet that some birds are never moving out, their dad WILL get mad.
On moving out day, I happened to go outside to take a photo of the birds who I was certain were still there just as the very last one was considering the whole flying thing.
She eyed me suspiciously for the FIRST TIME IN HER ENTIRE LIFE, inching slowly away from me.
That whole scared of the human who could squish them thing took entirely too long. I'm just sayin'.
And then she inched a little too far and found herself falling to the ground. A smart bird who was in a hurry to move out and see the big world would have tried to fly. Not that bird, though. Nope. She tumbled to the ground and then was all "Cool. I'll just hang out here."
And hang out she did. She sat there and she sat there and she sat there, in absolutely no hurry to do anything other than stare at me.
Meanwhile, mom sat up on our roof screaming her fool head off at me.
Ummm ... our gutters are dirty. Somebody do something about that.
ANYWAY.
The dad bird was there, too. I know it was the dad bird because he was sitting way too close to mom to be anything other than someone she was willing to share a nest with, if you catch my drift. Also, he had a red belly. Google is smart about this sort of thing and told me that the males have red bellies and heads.
Dad wasn't mad at me. Dad was mad at the baby.
The very second I backed away from the baby bird, he swooped down as fast as he could, scolded the baby, and started shoving it, willing it to fly.
So I stood there and watched a baby bird learn to fly.
And that is most definitely not a bad way to spend a morning.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Reader Comments (6)
Love it!
Really cool...thanks for sharing the story to the end.
That is a very awesome way to spend a morning.
Awesome!
I tried to watch our baby robins too, but I had to quickly shove the kids in the car and head off to my last 2 days of teaching before summer vacation. What do you do with your nest when they're gone?
oh man. all kinds of life lessons in this post.