Fledglings

Did I tell you that we had a pair of Carolina wrens build a nest on our front porch? I LOVE the Carolina wren because it looks an awful lot like a puff ball with a tail and it has a great song. (Click that link to go hear it via the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which TOTALLY rocks, in case you were unaware.) Plus, my neighbor recently told me they eat spiders…so, you know, that pretty much CEMENTED my deep, undying love for this little bird.

We were supposed to spend the morning visiting the dentist, but the littlest of the littles is sick, so there was some last minute cancelling to do first thing this morning. And good thing, too, because otherwise we would have missed out on this:

Well, hello little baby bird!

The chicks we’ve heard peeping for the last week poked their little feathered heads out of the nest this morning and we were lucky enough to catch it. We gathered in the doorway (noses practically pressed against the storm door window) to watch—our first sighting of them. Mom and Dad both came by with creepy-crawly eats. And then the babies hopped out of the nest! All five of them.

(Every year they build their nest in an empty wasp trap up under the roof of our porch…a trap that’s never caught anything but Carolina wrens.)

(That’s mom/dad standing on the brick.)

Then they tried out their wobbly wings. Some landed in very precarious places.

(And they often followed each other to those spots.)

Some found places a bit more stable.

Once they were all out of the nest and scattered around the porch, the parents were rushing around trying to keep track of them all. (I can TOTALLY relate.) I’m sure it’s quite a task to suddenly have five individuals flying and hopping around in different directions. Insta-parenting! Not like they haven’t been busy catching bugs and spiders (yay!) for them to eat for the last week and a half. And suddenly feeding five hungry birds one bug at a time would be time consuming, to say the least. But still. Now they’re FREE. And they have WINGS. It’s like suddenly all your kids can drive AND they have cars. And it happens all at ONCE. You know?

Anyway, it was so super cool. We’ve never seen birds fledge before, so it was a really thrilling morning for EVERYONE involved (people and birds).

I hope your Monday has been just as exciting. :-) Have a great day!

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Oh, hey there! One last thing—I would love to send you a FREE paperback copy of Intangible. Click here to find out how you can get me to do that. :-)

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