An Impromptu Nature Study

The other day Ave and I were outside sitting on a blanket reading, when she noticed a little birdie hopping on the ground. She immediately flew into Diego-Rescuer mode and took off after the bird. Once I caught on to what was going on I grabbed her and explained that we don’t go running up to wild animals.





We slowly made our way up to the baby bird, realizing that it couldn’t fly. Ave was very concerned. The bird’s parents were concerned too and started squawking loudly at us.

We left it alone, watching from a distance.

In the afternoon we went back out and it had moved to another part of the yard. At that point I decided to see what we could do. We walked over to our friends’ house (their yard butts up to our’s) and asked them if they had any ideas.

After googling I decided that we’d pick the bird up and put it in a basket in the tree, giving it some worms.

 

Alas, all our efforts were in vain. The temperatures dropped down quite a bit that night, the parents never came for the baby, and it froze to death: Obviously, that’s not what Ave was told.
From the sounds of it there have been quite a few of these little fledglings lying about (Grackle, I believe they’re called).

The other night the dogs were barking to get out. I checked to make sure there were no skunks, then let them out. Immediately they bolted off the deck and the trees in our yard suddenly were shaking like crazy. Our guess is that perhaps there was a raccoon (or something) around and it must’ve gotten into the nest.

Of course, at the time, {I’m not ashamed to admit} I thought perhaps the Apes were taking over or we were being invaded by aliens…since the trees were moving so much and there wasn’t a bit of wind.