Just the other day I came upon a baby bird on the path to the house next door. I almost stepped on it right as I spied it, in fact it is quite amazing I saw it at all. It was a baby junco, with feathers, about the size of a ping pong ball. It had stormed the night before and apparently the bird had fallen out of its nest. Looking around however I could not see one. I did see two adult birds, parents, chittering in the rhododendron beside the path. So sorry little bird I said as I went on my way down to the little cabin next door.
I came back about thirty minutes later and checked to see if the baby was still there. It was. Not making a noise. Still with feathers. Still the size of a ping pong ball. Going about my business I went into the house Several minutes later I came back out to study the problem.
We have a feeder in the back of our house. Not something that is easy to do with the squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons and even bears that all love bird food. And there are all kinds of birds that frequent the feeder, including juncos. In fact juncos are about the most numerous guests to the box feeder; they entertain us daily as we drink our coffee. So if they are so numerous why worry about one baby bird I thought.
I think it was precisely because they do entertain us that I could not get that ping pong feathered ball of a bird off my mind. Juncos are the first to hop in the feeder in the morning, never waiting until it is actually hung but jumping on board as I swing it out away from the squirrels. They watch us in the bedroom as we let the dogs out and wait patiently for someone to bring out the feeder. They visit all day long.
In addition to birds we have big gray squirrels who manage to jump anywhere I hang the feeder. There is no such thing as out of reach. We have smaller red squirrels who are new to the environs this year who are also miniature acrobats. And we have what I can only think are baby squirrels who seem like they are going to be gray but have a tinge of brown still. I am not sure. But these little squirrels have become our latest entertainment.
I sit on the deck a lot at this time of year. Reading or writing or sometimes just sitting. Last night I was writing as the sky darkened and the thunderstorms rolled in. This morning I am in the kitchen, my usual winter nesting place, because although it is spring it is still raining. Otherwise I would be out on the deck drinking coffee with the birds. The little squirrels hate that.
These squirrels are new this year. They have found the feeder and have become very territorial. I know this because whenever I am outside they spend an inordinate amount of time barking at me. Yelling I think. Tail twitching, racing up and down the tree next to the deck, and jumping on and off the railing. But unlike the older gray squirrels, they will not jump into the feeder if I am outside. So this has become my new entertainment. Simple pleasures.
We also have new birds this spring. In April we were inundated with tiny pine siskins. They flocked to the feeders and when there was no available opening they just hovered around the deck waiting for spaces to open up. And they crapped all over the railing, the deck and some of the furniture. For several days I did not put the feeder out as a way to encourage them to move on. It seemed to work. Or maybe I was lucky and it was just time for them to continue their migration.
Just recently a catbird, or several catbirds, have arrived to dine with us. They are pretty birds, with that unusual call that reminds me of my old siamese cat; hence the name. I am not sure how many there are, certainly a lighter colored female and a darker gray male but we only see them one at a time. They are somewhat territorial, so they are trying to work it out with the other bigger birds who have prior claim, specifically the cardinals and the rufous-sided toweys. So far so good. But it is the juncos that are the constant in our backyard, even more than the chickadees, and I feel a certain loyalty to them. So back outside I go.
This time I could see the baby was shaking, cold now that it was on the ground and probably hungry and thirsty. I spoke reassuringly to the parents then came back inside to talk to my husband. "There is a baby junco outside."
"That's too bad" he said, "does it have feathers? There's not much we can do."
"I know, I cannot even see a nest it might have fallen out of, but I cannot just leave it there." My husband closes his reader and looks at me. "What do you want to do?"
"I have an old nest. Maybe we can put him in it and try to put it back in the tree. I have to do something."
The baby was still there when we returned with the nest. I gently scooped it up and it immediately opened its mouth wide hoping to be fed. A parent bird swooped by my head. I plopped it in the nest and handed the whole thing to my husband who put it in a fork of the rhododendron. Being that he is taller than me it was our best hope. Then we went back inside.
A short while later some cousins showed up for a lunch date. The carpark is in front of the house where we had put the nest so as we went out to greet our guests I went over to check on the baby. It was quiet for the first time. No parents chitting or hopping around on the branches. The nest was on the ground upside down. I picked it up. There was no baby.
So maybe we saved the baby. I don't know. It was nowhere to be seen, and even our dogs had no whiff of it when they came out moments later. I am not sure what happened. Maybe the parents were able to move the baby from the nest. Although if that was true why couldn't they have picked it up off the ground? Again I don't know. But I do know that I felt better doing something rather than letting the inevitable happen. And I know a lot of baby birds die every year; in fact it is probably good that a lot of them don't make it. But this year, in this place, perhaps one baby didn't die but made it back to the nest for a second chance.
I will watch the juncos more closely this summer wondering if one of them is little ping pong. Sparing the parent birds their obvious grief lightened my own load that day. But holding that tiny feather-weight baby in my hands for a brief few seconds felt like touching God. It was a transcendent moment. Who knew?
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