Monday, June 2, 2008

I Didn't Do It

Okay, okay, okay. I do not blog every day. Well, I don't post a blog a day like some of my favorite bloggers do. I'm just not as talented or dedicated or something. But, I read my favorite blogs nearly every day.

I wanted to blog on Saturday, but I had a list of things to do and I was really tired after moving our youngest daughter back to the house. I'm really becoming a wimp of the first order.

But, back to what I really wanted to blog about: the little Mocking Bird Fledglings. A week or three ago I think I mentioned that I happened on a nest containing 3 little birds, mouths agape, cheeping for food. I wanted the camera that was with my husband a couple hundred miles away.

When the camera came back home, I dutifully went about looking for the little feathered babes (with camera in hand) so I could introduce you to them. Sob! They were gone. I might have mentioned that earlier, too.

However, I heard them this past Saturday. I'd gone out to check the mail and heard their familiar cheeping. Three distinct cheeps from nearby, but coming from three slightly different directions. I knew they must be close because two parent Mocking Birds tried to distract me from my quest to spy their little ones.

Finally, after staring into the nearby leafy branches of the (meanacing and weed-like) private bushes/trees for several moments, I was rewarded with zeroing in on the little bird making the most racket. Momma bird flew in close with a bug in beak and baby dutifully opened his/her mouth to accept the morsel. But no. Mom was trying to lure the babe into flight, I surmise.

The siblings were still nearby chriping their little immature chirps. The visable one continued on plaintfully seeking comfort in his distress. Patiently looking for the other two little birds, I was finally rewarded with visual contact after they moved about in the same leafy branches, not far from their whining, lamenting nestmate. Mom and Dad were close by and continually trying to coax the scared little bird to do something more than just complain about the injustices of being a little fledgling that would rather be back home in the tidy nest having Mom and Dad bring home the grub--or grubs as the case may be.

Eventually it did manage to hop and flutter onto a bare portion of a pine branch close by where it continued to plead for assistance. The other siblings were more active and less vocal. Eventually the crick in my neck overtook my joy in watching the energetic travails of new birds getting started with living in the real world.

Nope, I didn't have the camera at my disposal at the time. Yep, I figure that had I returned to the house to grab the machine to capture it all for future posterity, I'd have lost the whole event unfold before my less than perfect, but eager-to-see eyes. (Not to mention that I would have been shooting pictures nearly blindly. I often just point and click in the general vicinity because I cannot see what's in the view finder screen all too often when outside in the sunshine. I'll have to figure that problem out one of these days. Hopefully.)

And that's that. I didn't capture the little birds once more. You'll just have to trust me that I'm telling the straight story. Or not. It was fun to watch the little ones interact trying to encourage their little sib with Mom and Day nearby trying to help it along as well.

Somehow, the whole thing reminded me a little of my own nestlings and the one who's reluctant to move on out of the nest.

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