On the Fly
My parents have a few birds nesting in their backyard. What I find really great about this is the nest if in full view when we use the outdoor sink on our patio. I brought my kids by the other day to sit and watch, they weren’t disappointed. The mother bird, first perched on the spout of the sink, then she flew up into the nest and it looked like she was feeding the two baby birds. My children were delighted. I had to shush them only a few times, they wanted so bad to climb up the tree and see the baby birds.
As we patiently watched to see how the mother bird fed her young, we noticed something interesting. She did have food in her beak to feed her babies, but she only appeared to feed them. Just as one of her young was about to snatch the food from her mouth, the mother bird would back away and then she hopped out of the nest and flew to a tree not to far away. My children and I just looked at each other, perplexed and then continued to watch her with even more curiousity. She continued doing the same motions as before, she’d fly into the nest, wait for one of her young to reach for the food in her mouth and then she’d fly away. She did this several times. At first, we weren’t sure what she was doing, but about the fourth time she swooped into the nest and again teased the babies with the food in her beak, one of the baby birds lunged at the food in her mouth and fell out of the nest and landed on the ground. My children wanted to run and pick it up, but I motioned for them to stay put and watch. The baby bird, flapping frantically managed to make it to one of the lower brances of the tree. The mother bird watched her baby birds attempt at flying from the view point of the sink’s faucet. She seemed proud almost, watching her babies first solo flight. She then flew down under the tree to check on the well-being of her young one and give the food she had in her mouth to the baby.
My kids just look at me when I said to them that’s exactly how I plan to get them out of my nest. Then I chased them all around the backyard acting like a mother bird with food in my mouth and they for some reason weren’t the least bit hungry.
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