Birdwatching

An overdue bird repot... with photos to follow later in week!

Miles dressed himself last Saturday and went out to play before breakfast. He came back in, shortly, with this report:

"MO-AHM! The babies are awake. And they still don't have any feathers."

"Oh, honey... You didn't TOUCH the baby birds, did you?"

"Nope. I'm just looking." He held a plastic arrow, the matching bow tucked into the back of his T-shirt and a bungee cord spilling out of his pocket. Clearly, he was in ADVENTURE mode.

I was very, very dubious about his confident, swaggering reply, but I didn't want to start the day with a scolding. "OK.... Just don;t touch the birds, hear?"

Later the same day, Miles came inside and heaved his skinny self onto the couch like a two ton weight. "Boy, I'm tired!"

"Whatcha been doin'?" I ask.

"Diggin'." (And, yes, when I look, his hands and fingernails are completely grimed over. )

"Uh, hon, you really need to go wash your hands. And what were you digging?"

"Oh, I dug up a worm. And then I fed it to the baby birds."

Eeeeeee! (I visualize some 10-inch, finger-width earthworm attacking my tiny, featherless friends in their own home. Or, worse still, some grubby human boy smell clinging to the tiny birdlets so strongly, their mom flys away never to return.)

"Honey... Oh... No.... Tell me where you put the worm."

(Looking sheepish and suddenly much less sure of himself.) "In the nest..."

"Under the plastic bag?"

"Um-hum..."

"In the inside, round part of the nest, where the birds sleep, or in the outside part where all the leaves are piled?"

"Where the leaves are... WAAAAHH!" And then he started to cry. Sensing he had done something wrong, when he really only wanted to help, the little swashbuckler fell apart.

"Don't cry, son. It'll be OK. We just can't feed baby birds. No humans can touch or feed them. Only their mom can feed them...." (Lecture continues, as a fast reprimand clearly didn't take earlier.)

A few minutes later, the boy reappeared at my side with cleaner hands (still gross gingernaisl) and a few straggling sniffles. "Only Mom Birds can feed baby birds, right?" he says. "'Cause it's in their job."

And now, folks, we have a breakthrough. If there's one thing the boy Brandt relates to, it's the kind of work only a mother can do, "'cause it's in their job."

More later!