Well if you followed my tweets this weekend, you know I had a pretty full Memorial Day Weekend. Indiana Jones 4, Barefoot Waterskiing and Tornado watching, and then post tornado cleanup made for a pretty full couple of days. However, there was one event that happened this weekend that I am sad to have to report.
We’ve had a Robin’s nest on our back porch for a few weeks now. Mama Robin laid her eggs there, and then sat on them for a solid couple of weeks. And just about 2 weeks ago (it was about the same time baby Wade was born). We kept a pretty close eye on them, and even took some stunning video footage like this:
We felt that we had a pretty good relationship going on with mama and papa Robin. If they were laying on the nest, they would let us walk up and get a picture, or a video. They didn’t hate, they’d just fly over to the fence a few feet away and wait patiently.
So when my friends Steve and Kelly came over on Monday (Kelly;s dad lives close and got hit pretty hard by the tornado. They were returning my chainsaw) we were standing in the back yard with their two dogs, and I wanted to show them how close I was with my baby-bird tenants.
I walked up on the deck, and reached my hand up towards the baby birds (who I didn’t even think had feathers yet), and much to my surprise, all four babies flew–YES FLEW away in fear! One flew down onto the deck, where Steve and Kelly and their dogs were. It was pretty scared and the dogs were chasing it around. The other three were down on the patio and mama and papa Robin came down and skwaked up a storm. It was sheer madness!
The sad part is, when these babies (who already had read breasts, by the way) took their very first flight down. They didn’t know that they weren’t yet old enough to fly up. So they were pretty much stuck down on the ground.
I don’t know for sure if they lived or died. But I know that it was 45 degrees that night, and I know that there are plenty of other animals around here that would love to catch a tweety bird–especially a young defensless one that can’t fly yet.
I’m a baby bird murderer. I am. Somebody call PETA. I should be hauled away to tweety-bird killer jail with Sylvester the cat.
3 Comments
Don’t feel bad! I had a similar experience. The nest was just above my front door and i took much care to not disturb it that much. One day i got too close and those baby birds took off out of the nest and never came back
So I never knew if they had a chance to survive!
Thanks for the note Liza. Maybe we should start a support group or something. “Quite Possibly Baby Bird Killers Anonymous.”
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