So where did we leave off with the baby birds, in the rhododendron bush in the backyard?
They really were in there.
First they were pink and a bit fluffy, and then they started the hard work of growing feathers, which meant they needed a lot of sleep, with short breaks for eating and nuzzling with Mom.
The four babies slept in an undifferentiated pile, in a nest that became progressively smaller and smaller, or at least that’s how it seemed.
One day, the oldest of the babies saw me coming with my camera and flew out of the nest. The next day, they all saw me coming and flew off in different directions. But not too far.
And the following day, they were gone.
A week or so later, I saw one of the baby birds, a teenager now, standing on top of Mom’s temporary greenhouse in the backyard. He had a speckled breast, alfalfa-like hair, and clumsy long feet. When I got too close, he decided to fly to a nearby window, where he saw his mirror image flapping desperately in the glass and lost his footing (winging?) and started to fall, barely catching one long toe on the window ledge below.
Clearly, flying is much harder than Mama Robin made it seem.
P.S. Miss Butterfly has healed so well from her surgery that she was up to a visit to the groomer.
“Now that I look beautiful, don’t you want to give me a chicken treat?”
rachelmankowitz 