Sunday, August 26, 2012

Wind Blown Baby

"Come quick and bring your camera!"  Doug phoned an acre away from his machine shed.

Huffing and puffing, camera in tow, I sprinted out.  He showed me three fluffy baby black birds hopping around the evergreen trees behind the shed chirping a mile a minute.  The howling winds must have taken away their home.  Where was their mother?

Doug said he had searched  in all the trees and the ground and couldn't find a nest.  Now what?"  Oh yeah, that great invention-google.  I huffed and puffed back to the house and up the stairs to figure out how to be a bird mother.

Sixteen minutes later I was armed with string and an empty plastic butter bowl.  I scoured the yard for leaves and dead grass.  Doug punched holes in the sides of the bowl, tied the strings in the holes and secured them to a high branch and wa-la, we had a human bird nest!  Now to catch the birds.

One had hopped its' way over the barbed wire fence into the next field.  Doug took the bird father's role and scolded the baby for hopping away.  Baby didn't take kindly to the scolding and kept hopping out of Doug's reach as he tried to nab him.  Eight minutes later with tears rolling down my face and me rolling in the dirt laughing at my 6 foot husband trying in vain to catch a three inch bird, he captured the baby fugitive.

Reverently he put the baby in our human nest.  Google said the mother would come back to find the baby.  We stood back arm in arm waiting for the mother's return.  We patted ourselves on the back for being good humans and saving the baby.

Then the damn thing flew away!

I found a birds' egg on the ground.  It must have been blown out of a nest by the wind.  Gently I picked it up and put it in my human nest.

I will go out after supper and sit on it until it hatches...