Tag Archives: Birds

Grandbirds!

Nestbuilding robins need a blueprint.

During the COVID shutdown, Hubby and I discovered weird vandals had swathed our garage light with dead tiger lily leaves.

“You never know how quarantine boredom will affect some people,” he said.

Eventually, we discovered Courtney, a robin, wasn’t bored. She was constructing a nest.

She and Jason, her mate, must have flunked Nestbuilding 101. Their shapeless leaf pile dangled halfway to the ground.

Image by annca from Pixabay.

No eggs or nestlings fell. Still, we felt sorry for the hardworking couple. Hopefully, they’d consult a new architect before trying that blueprint again.

“Looks like we hung shrunken heads on the garage,” I observed.

Eventually, the robins’ mess toppled.

Instead, Courtney and Jason built another amorphous mound of lily leaves, topped by a tipsy nest.

We held our breath as Courtney settled in. Don’t lean to the right! Or left! No heavy lifting. Raise your feet so they won’t swell!

Mama robin broods her eggs in the tipsy nest.

Courtney took on a new-mama look: frazzled and frumpy, with missing feathers she’d worked into her nest. She probably couldn’t stand Jason, debonair in his neat, black-and-red suit. You did this to me!

Still, Jace babysat eggs and brought food to his grouchy spouse.

We grandparents-to-be grudgingly admitted the garage-light choice made sense. Under an overhang, the birds escaped bad weather. A perfect distance from the ground and roof, their abode protected them from interested neighborhood cats.

Those kids were smarter than we thought.

For Courtney, 14 days on the nest probably seemed like 14 years.

Image by cocoparisienne from Pixabay.

Then, it happened.

Hubby yelled, “Jason’s pecking at the nest!”

Our worry changed to celebration. Three tiny, wide-open beaks clamored for Daddy Jason’s tasty victual.

“Ya-ay-ay! Triplets!”

We did the Grandma-and-Grandpa Dance.

Unsure of their gender, we named the babies Ellie, Nellie and Belly — the last, the pushiest at dinnertime.

Success! Despite the messy precarious nest, the robins raised three babies.

Their parents, making 100 trips a day to find food, didn’t care about their children’s preferences: “What, you think this is McDonald’s? Eat!”

They did. A lot.

Soon, they crowded the nest as if in the back seat of a VW Beetle. Before long, the triplets left home.

Impossible! A little sad. But even nasty viruses couldn’t banish our smiles as we witnessed that shiny, brand-new life. How glad we were that Courtney and Jason moved into our neighborhood!

Though, about that nest blueprint, kids. Maybe you should check out different ones the next time?

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Have birds squatted on your property?

Mad About Camping

You initiated an end-of-the-season campout,” my husband insisted. “To celebrate your completing a novel.”

Crazy. I would never—

Wait. After months in the writers’ cave, I do recall blurting something about an October campout.

Exactly what a weary writer needed — extra laundry. Debates whether to pack heavy coats or light. How could I jam this carrot bag into the cooler? (Though the cheesecake fit fine.)

All for a campout in October, when Mother Nature frequently forgets to take her Prozac.

What word-fogged madness had seized me?

Hubby should have conducted an intervention: “Let’s go to a ritzy hotel where they golf cart you to the hot tub.”

Instead, he gleefully hooked up the camper and condemned me to a weekend in the wilds.

The campground teemed with campers struck with similar insanity, determined to experience one final outdoor inconvenience. Perhaps they’d all written books, too, and succumbed to brain disappearance?

Adults, as well as kids, competed in a never-ending, kamikaze bike race around the campground. For pedestrians on hasty nighttime hikes to restrooms, a headless horseman could strike no terror so profound as that caused by breakneck night riders with glow-in-the-dark decals.

Better to stay by the campfire, especially as temperatures dipped to 39 degrees.

Fall camping does have positives. With no devices or cell phone service, we retired early. Once my foggy mind realized a nighttime noise wasn’t a hair dryer left on, but the camper’s heater, we spent snuggly nights in sleeping bags.

Mornings, we consumed yummy breakfasts with enough cholesterol to supply the state.

No global warming occurred, so we couldn’t swim or kayak. We left bike rides to the kamikaze crazies. But we could hike.

We strolled through gorgeous woods, stopping to admire lakes, trees, and tough little flowers that braved autumn’s temperatures. Unable to translate bird language, we assumed a fervent chorus of welcome. Along with soaring hawks and eagles, even buzzards appeared graceful. We encountered a beaver lodge and a gobbling flock of wild turkeys.

Why, on these jaunts, do we persist in seeking deer? I’ve seen them in neighbors’ yards. Deer devour my tulips and tomatoes, yet we found this park quest entertaining — also part of the insanity.

If hikes cause rubber legs and aching feet, they also inspire the best naps ever taken by humankind.

We found ourselves lingering that last, lovely afternoon, breaking down camp at the last minute.

Arriving at home, we hauled in suitcases. Bags of smoky, dirty clothes. The cooler, with its highly questionable contents.

We recovered our Internet. Tons of emails awaited us. Tons of work.

What madness possessed us to come home?

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Do you like fall campouts?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: My Opinion Not Needed

O Lord, You know that when Mommy and Daddy Robin built their stringy, precarious nest on our garage light, this grandma ached to give them advice. Daddy, find a better site. Find a new architect. Mommy, keep your feet up so they don’t swell. No heavy lifting!

OMG, maybe those young parents didn’t need my input?