Three baby birds in the bush
Something pretty cool happened over the weekend. We found out if three baby birds in the bush are worth anything. While Heather was trimming the hedges on Saturday, she found a birds nest with a chick and two unhatched eggs!
First time I’ve seen a bird that young before, had probably just hatched that day and it was unbelievably cute. Every time we would jostled the bush, it’s raise it’s little head up with it’s mouth open. We figured since it couldn’t see yet it expects any kind of vibration to be momma coming home with dinner.
A quick glance overhead and we saw a bird watching us pretty intensely from the power lines. When we walked away from the nest for a few minutes, sure enough, the bird flew down and looked after the little one. Next time we came by to take a look, all of the leaves from the trimming had been cleared out and the nest look perfect – a woman’s touch.
Unfortunately, where the bush had been trimmed the nest was pretty exposed and I figured I needed to do something to shelter the little guys. I was afraid to touch or move the nest, since I’ve always heard that moms abandon nest touched by humans (which I found out from Google later is a myth) so I decided to build a little canopy with some spare 2x4s and particle board. It’s kind of a car-port for birds now; a bird-port if you will.
While I was building the bird-port, the second eggs started to hatch and I was able to snap a few pictures of it! Never seen an egg hatch before. And I can report that, as of this morning, the third egg hatched as well. Interesting little point, as soon as we left the nest alone for a few minutes momma flew by and picked the egg shells out of the nest.
We did a Google search on the eggs to see what kind of bird it was, blue eggs with red spots. Turns out it’s an Eastern Mockingbird. We’ve seen the birds around the yard a lot, but never knew what they were.
I was mowing the lawn yesterday and momma was following me around, picking up bugs. I’d mow a section and she’d swoop down, snatch up a grasshopper and then fly over to the nest. She got very, very close to me and the mower, I’ve never seen a bird so brave. Babies gotta eat.