The Foster Birds
We’ve got a bit of the empty-nester thing going on at my house…and not soon enough for my husband.
No, the kids haven’t moved out or gone off to college. It’s a bit soon for that. I mean, they haven’t hit 44 yet, and isn’t that the new standard move-out-of-your-parents-house age? It’s the actual nest on the front porch that’s finally empty. My husband lost his yearly battle with mother bird this time around and as a result of his failure, he has had to endure a front porch liberally christened with bird poo. The cat, however, has enjoyed a summer of prime bird watching. Big Fat Kitty will have to find a new hobby now that they are gone.
First, a bit of back story. For the last several years, my husband has fought a war with a bird who has tried time and time again to build a nest on the front porch pillar. (Okay, it is likely a succession of birds, but it’s more fun to think of it as one particular bird locked in mortal combat with a grown man year after year.) Every year, the hubby vigilantly brushes away the beginnings of the nest as quickly as the mother bird builds it. It’s a tricky endeavor…once eggs are in the nest, he won’t knock it down again. He unwittingly knocked it down one year when there was an egg in it and he’s felt guilty about that ever since. This is Mrs. Bird’s one advantage. If she can just get a single egg laid in the nest, victory is hers. My husband’s strategy, therefore, is to keep the nest from growing to the point where it can hold eggs.
This year, Mrs. Bird got clever. She launched a sneak attack. Without warning, she built her nest and laid her eggs while we were gone over a long weekend. Score one for Mother Bird. We came home to find this nest…
Peewee nest on the front porch
…with these eggs in it.
The five eggs laid on the front porch
This is where my story takes a bit of a twist. Little Mrs. Bird ended up with more than she bargained for and I don’t think her victory was exactly what she anticipated. If there is such a thing as victor’s remorse, she may have suffered from it. If you counted, you will see that she laid five cute little eggs in her nest. It seems like a pretty healthy sized brood for such a cute little bird. (For the record, I think she might be a Western Wood Peewee…best name for a bird EVER…Peewee…adorable!) Even with such a large clutch to begin with, though, I think she still might have noticed that something felt a little different when she settled onto her nest with all of these eggs in it.
The five original eggs plus the three foster eggs
As fate would have it, a few days after discovering the nest on our front porch, we discovered another, very similar nest with very similar eggs, on our camper. I was fairly certain that this mother bird was going to have trouble sitting on her eggs while traveling they raced down the highway at 60 mph, so I took the nest down…then stood there looking like an idiot, trying to figure out what to do with it. I knew that having moved it, the mother bird was unlikely to keep caring for the eggs it contained, but I didn’t have the heart to just leave them orphaned on the ground. The only solution I could think of was to take the three eggs home, add them to the nest on the porch, and hope for the best. I was banking on Mrs. Bird’s inability to do math to work in my favor. It did.
Fast forward a couple of weeks…
The original five eggs hatched, producing five ugly little beasts that resembled miniscule Muppets from hell.
Original five hatchlings plus three foster eggs
A few days later, the foster birds hatched as well—they were equally ugly. (Baby puppies are adorable. Baby kittens, precious. Baby peewees, hideous. Even worse than baby hamsters.)
All of the hatchlings
So far, my bird rescue operation was a success. The hard part was still to come though…for the mother bird, not for me. My biggest challenge at this point was dragging a chair onto the front porch and sneaking pictures of its new inhabitants every so often without freaking out the already overworked mother and father birds. (Yes, Mr. Bird was present and just as busy on bug-catching duty as Mrs. Bird. Score one for a responsible paternity!)
Aside from trying to stay out of our bird tenants’ way (which was not that easy, since…hello!…they were right outside my front door!), I did perform rescue operations on more than one occasion. The first time one of the little half-naked birds bailed out of the nest prematurely, I found it on the porch when I got home from work. I donned my latex gloves and returned it to the safety of its nest. I’m fairly certain that this was one of the foster birds, no doubt crowded out by its numerous and slightly larger foster siblings. A few days later we returned from a weekend camping trip to discover that one of the foster birds (possibly the same one) had abandoned ship while we were away. Without my there to rescue it, this little one met a sadder fate. Our first known casualty. I very ceremoniously scooped him up on a piece of cardboard and chucked him in the dumpster. It was a quite moving. (Did I mention that they were grotesquely ugly?)
Slightly older , still ugly baby birds
We watched the little monsters from the front door as they grew. Soon we could see their tiny little Muppet heads bobbing up over the edge of the nest with fluffs of feather crowning their noggins. One more rescue mission was necessary when they got a little bigger, and somewhere along the way there was another casualty. Though we never knew when and never saw the unfortunate victim, a head count showed that it was another one of the foster birds.
Are you my mother?
As the baby birds got bigger and more active, and the parents had to make more and more frequent bug deliveries, Big Fat Kitty took up her vigil inside the front door and drooled. (The birds pretty much just ignored her.) The dog was blissfully unaware of their presence, which was fortunate for her mental health because she’s been afraid of birds ever since she was traumatized by a nesting Robin in the backyard a few years ago. She restricts her wildlife-related amusement to squirrel chasing nowadays.
Foster bird front and center amidst his nest mates
In this picture, it’s easy to see the difference between the younger foster bird (front and center), and its slightly older nest mates. The older ones now look like real-live birds instead of some Jim Henson creation from The Dark Crystal.
The older and closer to flying the little birds grew, the more protective Mr. and Mrs. Bird became. They were no longer satisfied to just scold us from the tree when we insisted on using the front door. They resorted to acrobatic fly-bys and other aerial histrionics. (Note: They never did become as aggressive as nesting Robins I have encountered, who will dive bomb you mercilessly when young ones are fledging.)
Fledglings have spread out onto the adjacent pillar
After another camping trip we came home to find that the teen-birds had decided their tiny little nest was too small and had spread out to occupy the top of the adjoining column…the verandah, if you will. (Let’s spread the bird poo around even farther, shall we?) All except the one remaining foster bird had sleek, fully developed feathers and they were practically indistinguishable from the parents. One of the older birds was unaccounted for, however. I looked around but didn’t see it and decided it must have earned its wings while we were away. A few minutes later my son reported otherwise. It had indeed tried to fly, but hadn’t made it farther than here…
The watering can that the fledgling got trapped in
Luckily, there was no water in the watering can. Just this…
Fledgling peewee trapped in a watering can
I liberated the little klutz and he recovered from his temporary confinement quickly and was soon fluttering around the front porch, soon to be joined by his siblings. Big Fat Kitty was beside herself.
Over the next couple of days, they all took wing…even the surviving foster bird. They fluttered around in the bushes and trees near the front porch for awhile, and then they were gone…off to live their little birdie lives. I’m especially happy that Foster Bird made it. It’s nice to know that I saved at least one life. It’s been terribly boring on the front porch since they left. Big Fat Kitty misses them terribly. Don’t tell my husband, but I hope some of them come back next year. I may try to distract him if they do, at least until we have eggs. Maybe they can expand onto the pillars in the other corner of the porch, too.
Now, off to hose off the bird poo.
