baby birds

Last week there was a storm here and a robins nest in our red maple tree was blown out on the ground. The three blue eggs were crushed and the baby robins inside, not yet ready to hatch didn't make it. The mud and stick nest laid in the yard for several days, I was going to move it when I mowed the yard in a day or so.

After feeding Gilly and Pokey that night I happened to walk past a pine tree in the yard; there on the ground was a baby bird. I didn't know what kind it was but it wasn't old enough to be out of the nest. Not wanting to bother it for fear the mother would not come back to it, I left it along. A few hours later I went back to look at the baby and there on the ground not far from it was another baby! I picked the one furtherest from the base of the tree and put it beside the other little one. Hoping that the cat wouldn't get them I went inside for the night.
Next morning on the way to the barn I looked to see if the babies were still there; and guess what??? There was a third baby on the ground!

Well, remembering what I was always told, never pick up a baby bird, the mother will not come back to it. How lucky those little birds were because the cat hadn't found them or didn't have bird on her menu at that time. Then I remembered the robin nest, picked it up and put the three little birds in it; they huddled together, ducking their heads as if to hide from me. I lifted the nest up into the pine tree to some branches just above eye level. These little guys had fallen out of a nest somewhere up in this tree but I couldn't reach or even see where they had come from.

I kept watching the nest, which I could see from the sunroom door. It wasn't too long before the mother bird, a house sparrow found her babies. She has been feeding them and cleaning the nest ever since. This has been almost a week now and the babies are growing bigger and stronger. Soon they will be ready to fly off! It's amazing to me that the sparrow accepted the babies after I handled them and that they are in a robin's nest! As you can see though the family is doing fine!