Birdie

For the past few weeks, there has been a bird nest nestled next to the front door awning of my parents' house. We see the Mama bird sitting there and how she flutters away whenever we walk too close to her or when we open the door. Personally, I find the bird nest to be charming because there must be baby birds in the making, and who doesn't love babies?

One evening I happened to be by the front door and I see that the cleaning lady is spraying the awnings down with a hose (we do have a dirty house, I suppose. The eggshell-shade it originally was has turned rather rotten through the years) and you see all of this black dirt cascade down. Then suddenly, I notice something from the tree come crashing down from the nest as a result of high-pressure water being shot at it: a little bird had fallen down. Wet and vulnerable, it quickly hopped into a little crevice.

I pull out the poor little guy whose whole body is shivering and his feathers are completely soaked. I coax him and temporarily put him into a little flower pot (sans flower) with leaves.

(Look at the little guy! Isn't he cute...but sad?)

Needless to say, the cleaning lady stopped hosing. Then suddenly I see something else from the nest. It's another little bird whose head and one wing has flopped over the side of the nest.

I couldn't help him. Dramatically enough, the mother comes swooping back to the nest to find that one of her children is missing and the other one is in a very vulnerable state. I watched as she just stood on the awning, blinking her sad eyes, contemplating what to do next and how to salvage the nest.

I go online and look for ways to help baby birds. Thankfully, this one is a fledgling and can actually fend for itself in some ways. I had put the pot underneath where the nest was to see if the Mama can figure out that her baby is there. But after watching from the window inside the house, it didn't seem like he was being noticed by the mother. (I did, however, see it hopping and tweeting. Cute!)

So, I build it a new nest with a box (holes on the bottom), tissues, twigs, grass...and place the baby inside that one. I figure his brown feathers would pop out from the white tissues. I go away for a little while, and when I go back to look, the baby is GONE.

I look up to see it is miraculously back up in the nest tweeting.

Hum...

...The next morning, both babies and the mother were gone. Hopefully to a more peaceful home with less water.