On Friday, this little fledgling taught me how important a mother's persistance is to the well-being and growth of her children.Friday evening my little warrior, came running in the house and said, "Mom, you've got to come see what I've found!"
In typical mom fashion, my response was, "What is it?" I was not in the mood to run outside where my eyes would be accosted by the half decomposed body of a fish who was left high and dry after the irrigation water left for the week or the left-over bits of innards and fur that were the mortal remains of one of our cat's most recent conquests.
"This is something you just have to see, Mom. Come on!" was his exuberant reply. Caught up in his enthusiasm, I hurried out the back door to find him kneeling next to an overturned bucket. My first response was to step back. I could just see a snake shooting out from under that bucket at the first opportunity for escape. He slowly and gently lifted the bucket to reveal a wide-eyed, darling, little bird. My first thought was, "Oh no! He has caught this little bird and now it is wounded." I asked him about it in my "mom tone," trying not to accuse, but failing. The warrior quickly explained that the little bird hopped to that spot by himself and that he had put the bucket over it to keep any of the neighborhood cats from finding an easy snack while he came to get the family. He told us that it couldn't fly and had hopped-flown from near the fence to near
the back door. The man of my dreams and I exchanged looks, did a quick scan of the area, and a nearly the exact same moment noticed the watchful mother bird perched on the edge of our roof making a careful assessment of the situation. She must have decided we were not dangerous to her little one because she stayed where she was. As we were pointing her out to the warrior and his audience and suggesting that we all back away so that she could get to her baby, the little bird hopped onto Kylie's foot and up to her ankle. She tried shaking him off, but he was determined to stay. I shooed him off and we all backed onto the patio to watch what would happen next.
The little bird chirped loudly for his mama. Her response was much more quiet. She knew the dangers that existed in the world of which he was obviously unaware. In spite of the volume, or lack thereof, of her responses, he heard her and hopped-flew to directly under her. She flew down to him, then flew off. She did this repeatedly and each time he would hop-fly to where he thought he was closer to her. Within a few minutes he had gone through a gap between the fence and the house and was headed from the front yard. My little warrior had a hard time staying on the patio. He begged to go to the front yard and watch. I agreed to go to the front yard and see if it would be possible for him to watch at a safe distance. As I rounded the house into the front yard, I spied the little wanderer under the edge of a bush, still issuing his indignation at not being in the nest. His mama was perched in a low-hanging branch of a tree nearby. They continued to do the same thing where she would fly down and fly away and he would hop closer. The baby hopped-flew across the front yard and hid under our van. His mama kept trying to get him to follow her, and each time he wanted to, but didn't quite know what to do. We watched their antics for what seemed like forever, but was actually closer to forty-five minutes. I could sense the mama's frustration as she would over and over again show him what to do only to be met by discouragement at every step of the way. I felt for her. My kids laughed as I would give voice to the frustrations I was sure the mama bird was feeling. "Come on, you little booger, just do what I do." "Try sweetheart. You can fly if you'll only try." "Do you think I have all day to try to get you to fly?" I just felt so helpless for her. I wanted so much to pick up the bird and put it in a nest and tell it to try again tomorrow. It's probably a good thing that I had no idea where their nest was.
At this point, the man of my dreams spotted a neighbor taking her granddaughters for a little walk and invited them back to look at our chickens. (I don't mind if people who know we have them want to come visit the chickens, but I don't generally go out soliciting visitors. I was a little surprised when he asked them. Although I would never have done it, I enjoyed visiting with this neighbor to whom I have probably said fewer than fifteen words in the fourteen years we have lived in this house. She is a very private, quiet person, and while I am not often quiet -- due to the effect my children have on the volume of my voice, I am also a very private person. It's not a combination that fosters a relationship.) We visited with the neighbor and showed her granddaughters how to feed weeds to the chickens through the wire. I tried to answer all of the older girl's questions. I think she was probably four or five and had tons of things she wanted to know about the chickens. We even got a couple of them out for the girls to touch. They probably stayed for about half an hour. When they left the baby bird was still under the van! That poor mama! Then as if he'd been waiting for me to come back, he hopped-flew to the back of the driveway where we were watching, then to the patio and into the cats' food dish. Augh!!! Fortunately at that point there were no cats in the area.
I made my kids come watch from in the house until the little stinker went between water storage barrels and couldn't figure out how to get out. His chirps became frantic and try as she would his mama was just too big to get back there with him. The next time that she flew off, I went over and shooed him out with a thin stick. No sooner would I get him out of one tiny spot that he would find a new one. I was about ready to call the cats and be done with this little turkey when he hopped onto my stick. I pulled it out and placed him on top of the brick wall at the back of the patio. I figured he would have to fly to get down from there. He sat up there for a really long time.
He did finally fly down off the wall. Almost immediately he went back behind a barrel! I shooed him into a soda flat that I was saving to use to share vegetables from my garden, and carried him out into the middle of the back yard where I thought he would not be able to find a hiding place. Boy, was I wrong! As soon as I stepped away, he flew to the tiny gap at the bottom of the back door to the garage that leads into Ron's private world (his shed) and had to be chased out.
At this point, I had had enough of the not-so-darling-any-more baby bird and went in to finish the dinner I had just been getting started when my little warrior came in to get me. The kids told me that he did finally fly away, and I hope it's true. I'm just glad that I haven't seen baby bird parts left on the lawn. That baby bird's mama is much more patient than I am. She never yelled at him, just encouraged him. (As you know, dear reader, I am an expert in bird languages and can interpret her chirps.) She never gave up. She was always right there with him. She did all that she could do to make sure her baby learned to fly. There was no way she could have carried him back to the nest, but she did all that she could do by being his example. I would have said, "You keep trying. I need chocolate. Come and get me when you are actually ready to do this."
So Friday's lessons were: be more long-suffering with my children and don't spend two hours watching birds when you should be making dinner. (We didn't end up eating until 9:00.)
