Birds' House

Remember the baby birds I wrote about a few weeks ago? Well they grew up and fledged surprisingly quickly. I would look out at the nest and see six nearly identical birds overflowing for a second before they flew away in response to my attention. I also encountered them in the garden where the young ones were strengthening their wings with flying games that included dive bombing me in quite a startling manner.

Then about a week ago I looked out the bathroom window and didn't see the nest. Peering down I saw a splatter of dried dirt and bird shit on the deck below. Uh oh, the weight of six growing birds was clearly too much for their mud, straw and bird-saliva construction. The teenagers are still hanging around the garden, but I noticed this morning that the parents have started reconstruction. A lip of mud was balancing on the tiny ledge where the last nest had been. By this afternoon it had doubled in size (about a quarter of the full size of the earlier version). Every now and then I glimpse a wee bird flying in with a beak full of mud or a strand of dried grass.

What great role models for persistent commitment to having the home that they want, where they want it, not matter what goes wrong!