For the Birds - Phoebe

This tale, really, is for the birds.  I'm still so sick about it I hate to even bring it to memory.  If you follow me on facebook, this is old and tired news, but I've got to put it in here for "the book."

Three times, since living in this house, different birds have tried to make a nest in the odd little corner above our dining room window under our covered front porch. The first time, the nest didn't hold and kind of crumbled to bits.  The second time, the nest was successful, eggs were laid, and then one morning, we found scrambled bird eggs on the porch (sad enough without the third story.)  

This year, the industrious little bird was very diligent and did not shy away from us much.  The others had been kind of sneaky in building their nests and I'm not even sure what kind of birds they had been. This one just kind of moved in with us and assumed our hospitality would see her through.  We were able to identify her with one of Grace's birding books.  She was a "Say's Phoebe."  Since she really did decide to move in, we decided to name her Phoebe for short and do what we could to observe and support her (tried not to go out the front door very often so as not to disturb her work and left a little dish of water out so she wouldn't have to go far to find water.) If we did go out the front door, she would leave the nest corner and patiently wait on the railing or a nearby perch for us to leave.  

She flew back and forth to that window hundreds of times until she had a tight, good, little nest all ready to go.  Then, we noticed her hanging out in the nest for a while and assumed she was getting ready for eggs and/or laying on them.  (June 11th)  

 One morning, Harriet couldn't take it any longer and wanted desperately to see inside the nest.  I was so worried we would scare her away, so we waited until she left for a few minutes for a peek into the nest. (June 13th)  We hurried and grabbed a ladder.  The nest was nestled so far up into the wall of the porch that there was no way to get above it to see down into it.  I grabbed my phone and hovered it over the nest to get a blind picture.  Sure enough, it showed us 3 perfect little eggs in a softly lined nest.  We were so excited!!  When would they hatch?  We weren't exactly sure how long they had been there, but thought the hatching would happen within a week or so since she had been sitting on the nest for about a week.

6 days later (June 19th), we couldn't take the suspense and decided to check again.  I'm convinced we saw these little chicks shortly after they were born (maybe less than a day?)  All 3 eggs hatched!  So exciting!  We finally got a nest that produced baby birds.  It was extremely protected in our porch - absolutely no predator could get up there and no wind could blow it down.  I really didn't think that anything could keep these babies from surviving and one day, flying out of that nest!

We walked past our front window several times a day to check on Phoebe.  Phoebe's "husband" (they do mate for life) was also spotted during this time.  They worked tirelessly going back and forth to the nest with insects in their mouths.  I read that baby birds eat every 10-15 minutes around the clock.  Incredible.  It was really cool to watch these parents provide for their babies.  

We decided to chance a few more pictures.  The girls wanted to see the babies so badly and the nest was pretty deep.  So, the day after we first spotted the chicks, I took these:  (June 20th) 

I think this was the next day.  They started chirping.  They sounded like little squeaky mice.  We would go stand on the front porch and listen to them.  

And, then a few days after that, they were getting big enough to poke their heads over the top: (June 24th)

The cousins were all here that week, so we continued to ooh and ahh over the chicks through the window.  We took a peek on Wednesday so we could see how big they were getting (June 26th.)

(hmm... they seem to go through an ugly phase?  These definitely aren't as cute as the newborns or the adults.  But it's cool to see their feathers coming in and their fresh pink skin underneath with their little yellow beaks.)

Sean, Kate, and Melissa left Thursday morning (more cousin stories later.)  Janie was still here and we headed to a movie with Grandma after dropping the Barnhisels at the airport.  After the movie, we got in the (HOT!) car to find this on the temp reading:  

It wasn't really 130 - the car tends to exaggerate, but we're guessing it was around 115.  It was so hot to drive home.  The a/c compressor in my car couldn't keep up at all.  The kids melted in the backseat and the house was just as warm as the car walking in.  (How do people live in Phoenix or Vegas?!) David's bike computer recorded 115 shortly afterwards on his ride home.  I didn't even think about the birds at the time.  We were so busy with cousins and then the next day - gone all day again.  Friday night at bedtime, David made a passing comment that he hadn't seen Phoebe around for a while.  I started thinking hard and realized that Thursday morning was the last I had seen her.  

Saturday morning, I got up early.  (June 29th) I knew I would find a nest of dead baby birds.  I can't be exactly sure, something may have happened to Phoebe (and it may have been weather related too) but I'm pretty positive that the heat was just too much for the babies.  Either Phoebe couldn't get enough water to them and they dehydrated, or they just couldn't handle the temps.  Either way, birds don't come back to nests to feed dead babies and Phoebe was gone.  (A few days later, we think we might have spotted her near our house, but no way to tell if it was our Phoebe.)  Anyway, back to Saturday morning.  I wanted to pull the nest down and bury it before the kids got up (or the neighbors spotted me having a bird funeral in my pajamas.)  Not that I don't think the girls could have handled it, it was just too sad for me.  I didn't want to see their faces on top of everything, and truthfully, I didn't want them around in case the inside of the nest was messy and I knew they'd want to see. (Thankfully, there was nothing terrible to see.  The 3 chicks were just cuddled together and looked just fine, except for the obvious.) 

Nature can be so cruel.  I feel so bad for these Phoebe birds who were so close to having raised their nest (they were probably a week away from success.)  They had so carefully hidden it, so diligently worked on it, and taken such good care of the chicks.  I don't know if birds have many feelings, but I can't imagine that they don't feel some kind of loss.  I hadn't realized how attached I was to those dang birds!  I had developed a pretty often habit of stopping at the window.  It was days before I quit doing that and didn't have to remind myself that they weren't there.  Rule #1 - never name an animal you don't want to be attached to.  Ugh, I still get sick to my stomach thinking about it.  I know the mortality rate of the wild is high.  (Don't ever watch video of newly hatched sea turtles trying to get from the beach to the ocean.  They have about a 0.1% chance of making it before getting eaten.)  But, I was so convinced that there was nothing standing in the way of this nest being successful unless the mom and dad both got eaten by a cat.  The nest was just perfect and both parents were healthy and involved.  

Harriet was so sad.  She had so much looked forward to seeing the chicks jump from the nest and fly away.  I had looked forward to that too.  Sorry little chicks, and Phoebe, and Daddy.  Hope you have better luck with your next nest.