My heart is completely filled up right now. I know if I looked in the mirror, my face would be glowing. I discovered it this afternoon. Artist hubby and I were working in the backyard when all of the sudden…. (Okay. You should know this is probably not going to turn out the way you were thinking.) …when all of the sudden I looked up to find the little black bird, who has been singing to me in the evenings, was perched high in the rain tree with a bug in her beak.
Then she unexpectedly disappeared….
into a hole on the side of our tree. When she emerged…
I think I surprised her. I wasn’t close, but I wasn’t where I had been when she entered her sanctuary in the tree. She flew off and left behind were the high pitched twerps of her clutch.
Babies! We are going to have babies!
I knew immediately that I wanted to share our bird story with you. I was so delighted, so inspired by her attempts to care for the babies in the cavity of the tree that I spent several hours watching and documenting her feeding and protecting.
I have to admit though that I struggled with sharing this now. This is supposed to be a Week of Poetry, not a week of whatever I decide to write about. But as luck would have it, I actually have a poem about this kind of bird: the starling. Happy accident or super synchronicity?
And as a bonus, here is the magical video that inspired the poem.
Special thanks to Sophie Windsor Clive and Liberty Smith for sharing their art and adventure with the world.
Oh, how sweet! I just love baby birds!
I know, Janet! I am looking forward to the whole journey with them.
Sistar I woke up mike just now tell him the news before I even read the story. We r laughing at how excited I got and how jumping to conclusions before getting the full story. Lol. I am learning a lesson at two am. Get all the facts first. Beautiful poem and and pictures. Love u and your unpredicability
Ooooops! lol That would be one of those where you heard it from the mouth, sistar!
Congratulations! Always a beautiful sync-up with nature when you get to observe a mama (or papa) bird taking care of the young’uns. As for the video, I had never seen, nor realized that, starlings flock like that. Such beauty! Thank you for sharing.
You had me there for awhile! All set to send my congrats but I’ll do it anyways for your mother to be in your yard. Thanks for sharing this amazing video.
What excellent shots you got. I love it when the baby birds arrive. Our local cardinals had two last year. I was so excited!
You got me with the title, I thought YOU are actually having a baby of your own!!!!
HAHAHHA…..
I so love your beautiful heart and mind!!! I thought you were gonna say BABY, baby! Still a blessing. I have seen a Blue Jay and two Red Robins in my yard this week, and my female hermit crab has burrowed down to molt. Nature is beauty. Beauty is poetry. Thank you!
Yes, my heart about jumped out of my chest when I read the title– you trickster!
Congratulations surrogate mommy & daddy! Give the new little ones a “cheep” for me!
The starling tribe well and truly makes me feel alive. Great video, amazing how they fly together like that
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Where I grew up here in the US, there used to be a couple of large flocks of starlings that would gather outside of DC in the suburbs. When they did, there would be citizen’s meetings to decide whether to use firecrackers or birdshot or poison to get rid of them; frequently, the trees were simply destroyed. The bird droppings messed up people’s valuable cars and the children would get bird droppings in their hair or on their clothes. Yes, sometimes they were loud, but no louder than the noise of human animals, hollering as they left bars. I miss the different large flocks of birds. (Seagulls chased away many smaller birds, but peregrines have begun to roost in the city, and they will eventually chase away the seagulls and pigeons. Treasure the large flocks of birds in Ireland and protect them, following nature’s rules. It’s sad that the weak weakest birds often die, but death at the beak of a hawk is much more merciful than slowly starving. Mama Ginnty is right about hanging laundry when birds are near in large numbers. One problem we had, at least when I was a kid many years ago, was that even when we only had our usual number of birds around, they’d eat the mulberries off the wild mulberry trees. The birds’ resulting guano would stain most things it hit. Thanks for a lovely video (and the others that have been posted since this one).
What a lovely post!
Thanks!
exciting times. baby birds thrill the soul.
So true!