Mother Knows Best

Momma on the job

Perhaps I should have more faith in mother nature.  Yesterday's post implied that some errant bird had laid eggs too late to produce any chicks.  This morning I went out to the back yard to water my garden and glancing up at the nest, I discovered a beak still as a millpond stretching out from the edge.

So now I know that momma bird is doing what she is supposed to be doing.  But here's the hitch.  She picked the wrong yard to raise her young.  It would be much better to have nested in a tree in the property behind the fence at the back of our property. Over that fence is a convalescent home behind which is a parking lot and an open area with a few walking paths where virtually no one wanders.  The best thing about it is that the convalescent home has no cats.  We, on the other hand, have two birders, mousers, squirrelers that act without remorse when around feathered things--without regard for the innocence of youth.

I'll be watching closely and hope to be able to tell you that the beautiful blue eggs have produced two healthy chicks.  Guarded optimism is the order of the day. 

Stay tuned.

The Cycle of Life

This evening my son pulled the ladder around and set it up to see a branch over the chair where I sit with my coffee and tablet in the morning or wine and book in the evening when I want to commune with nature.  He wondered what was inside the nest on the branch and, sure enough, he hit paydirt.  Two beautiful blue eggs.  What a prize!

Back yard booty

Now, of course, I'm wondering if so late in the summer these eggs could still be viable.  Down the street, my neighbor with the monster lenses spent a few hours today sitting on the sidewalk at the end of his driveway waiting for an opportunity to catch a shot of the bluebird babies nesting in the hole in his tree.  He had settled in with his sophisticated equipment, including a parabolic microphone, to see and hear the chirping baby birds.

I wonder if my eggs belong to a late-blooming mother whose sentiments are pure but whose understanding of the cycle of life is lacking.  She might want to take some lessons from the bluebird momma down the block.