Baby Birds

Last year I got very excited when some noisy miners hatched in the elm tree right outside my bedroom window. Unfortuneately, they only survived a couple of days before being carted off by some predator, I think, and I was very sad.

This year, the mother bird came back to the same spot. The nest seemed to go up very quickly (like in a day)and she sat for ages - I think a few weeks, so I was beginning to despair of anything ever hatching. Then two weeks ago, we heard some feeble chirping coming from the nest, so we celebrated the birth ( with a good shiraz, of course). Each day the chirping has got stronger and louder and CONSTANT - and we think human babies are demanding!! -ha they have got NOTHING on baby birds!!!

After a week we could see heads bobbing around in the nest, then exactly 2 weeks after they hatched , they took their first flight to a nearby tree. Here they are: 3 cute little fluffies - Huey Duey and Louie.




They remind me of a children's book titled " Are You My Mother" - much beloved in this household by my four now -grown -up children. The synopsis involved a baby bird which had fallen out of it's nest and set off on an adventure in search of it's mother. As it is passed each object it encountered - animate or inanimate- the dialogue would go:

"Are you my Mother?"
"No" said the cow. "I am a cow" ..tractor.horse etc..

As it was a firm favourite, I read it far more often than I would have liked and can still recite the bloody thing verbatim today -20 years later!! lol!!