5/11/2007

A couple of weeks ago, I realized that there was a nest in the bouganvillea. And in those weeks, the mother mockingbird, the father mockingbird and I have been busy. Mrs. hatched her eggs and then was very busy, as mothers are, darting in and out of the tree with mouths full of tasty worms and other tidbits. While she was out of the nest, Mr. stayed in the area, flicking his tail and squawking his noisy squawk if anyone got too close. He'd swoop in and distract predators while she slipped into the nest. If she saw any trouble, she'd squawk, Mr. would come over and squawk some more, and if that kept up, I'd go to see what cat, child, or other predatory animal was in the area and shoo them away.

It was all working fine until this week. Much more squawking. Compounded by the presence of crows swooping in and out to find the shelled peanuts my child had hidden around the yard. I noticed that the attention of Mrs. was no longer on the nest, but rather on the ground a few feet from the tree. I watched her, and sure enough, she was flying the tasty morsels to the ground. When she was busy elsewhere I found this.

Getting fat and feathery, but still unable to fly. And, more importantly, in a much more precarious position! So Mr.'s busy keeping everything out of the area. Since there was nothing going on at the nest anymore and hadn't been for days (and since I decided I really didn't mind if we didn't get another brood of birds in there in case she was planning on it) I decided to go in after the nest. And found this.

So apparently one of the babies perished and the sib had to hit the road early. Hopefully it'll learn to fly soon and get out of danger! In the meantime, the three of us will stay busy!

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