Fledglings

A fledgling looks up into the tree calling to his mother.

Last year about this time we were watching two robin fledglings taking flight and starting life on their own. We'd found them on the ground with very few feathers so we put them in an abandoned nest we had tied to a tree. I've learned a lot about baby birds in the year since that experience.

This year it's as if fledglings are falling out of the sky. Out of their nests anyway. Guess they do. There have been several in the yard over the past few weeks. This year it's Blackbirds and Robins. Blackbirds outnumber the robins by three to one in this case. I've watched as a mother Blackbird brings food to her baby at regular intervals. The fledgling sleeps in the grass or on the driveway in between visits. One evening he went to a fir tree and looked up into the branches calling out to his mother. She might have had a nest there. The next day he managed to get to the lot next to our house and I watched him from the kitchen window calling out when he was hungry. Mother would feed him and his little wings would flap as she did. He was out on his own flying the next day.

Yesterday a newly flighted Robin landed next to the feeder. I didn't recognize what kind of bird he was a first. He looked so exotic with spots on his chest and his feathers all kind of askew.

Tonight we have another baby blackbird in the yard. He's sleeping next to the drive close to the house. I went over before the sun set to look at him. He closed his eyes and would peek at me every so often just like my parakeets do to me sometimes as if they can hide by closing their eyes. He's a big fat baby, probably about ready to take off on his own soon. I've been hearing him all day. I recognize that call now, we've hear it so often.

They just sleep on the ground and the mother in me finds it disconcerting, hoping they'll be safe. If it would help I'd go out and sleep next to him, but I'm thinking he and his mother would rather I didn't. :)

Sunsets

I'm pretty sure I never noticed sunsets before I moved to Michigan 2 years ago. Now if I don't make a point of looking I feel guilty. I'm given this magnificent show on every cloudless night and I feel it's my duty to view it. What's more I feel it's my duty to photograph it as well. I don't do quite as well getting them all on film. (The small shadow on the lake there in the center of this photo is a family of geese.)

I was sitting three nights ago on the deck watching the sunset. It seemed kind of ordinary so I didn’t run and get my camera. There was this C shaped bank of clouds and the sun was under the top portion. I just saw wonderful orange yellow sky in the opening, then the sun started peering out from under those clouds and rather quickly began to sink in a bright blaze of glory. As it disappeared behind the bottom part of that bank a tiny hole in the clouds made it seem like the trees were on fire, the sun was so bright there. About that time I left and went inside thinking I’d seen all there was to see of it and came upstairs to my desk to work. I turned toward the window and the clouds were this amazing blue and pink and I thought just when you think the show is over, it’s not, and I ran downstairs and took some pictures of again what I thought was the end of it. I came back upstairs and AGAIN the sky is now purple and pink and yellow and the clouds are blue gray. Will I ever learn. And then again it’s even different and a group of geese just flew over. The picture keeps changing and becoming more glorious. There is a lesson here.