Last month I ran across an egg burrowed in the raspberry patch. It never hatched, but let's forget that part for the sake of our story.
A couple weeks ago, just a scant few feet from the site of the egg, I ran across a baby Evening Grosbeak sitting on a grape vine. Not much of a bird, tufts of feathers sticking out like stray lint with a beak that all but dwarfed the scrawny body. Yet it sat, calm and collected, as if waiting for a bus back to the nest.
The next morning, instead of dead and cold baby bird like we feared, the little fella was sitting a few feet away, still waiting on that bus. You want to hope for the best and of course there's always the odd chance. Still, it's a tough world and with cats roaming the neighborhood (ours included) the chances aren't all that hot for a stray bird.
Sunday, while feeding the fish in their temporary pond, I noticed another strange lump of feathers. So I sat down to watch and eventually the young bird woke up and looked around, awakened by the sounds of feeding Koi. Little birds are probably born with a small database of dangerous sounds and I bet smacking fish lips isn't one of them.
I ran to get the camera and returned for more quiet observation. The bird, a little confused about the noises and flurry of activity, stretched a bit, shook sleep from a leg and waddled over to the pond for a drink of water. A couple sips of water and bonk, back to sleep. I dragged Faith out for a look and snapped this photo.
The next morning there wasn't a bird "sleeping with the fishes" so I'm hoping it's off learning to use those fluffy wings. Maybe the two of us will meet again in a couple of weeks?
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