Baby Birds....

So, I wanted to try my hand at gardening....right? I got a hanging strawberry plant, lime tree and an ivy. With the help of my more green thumb friend, we got them all growing. (QUITE a nice selection of limes growing also...bring ON the vodka and cranberry!!) I'm all proud of myself, not having killed anything yet, ya know...and then it started...

First, she was just hanging out on the ivy, which hangs by my back sliding glass door which overlooks the yard of toys. Then she's bringing stuff IN the ivy...sticks...straw...etc.

She's apparently setting up shop, Mrs. Bird.

Now, I'm not an animal HATER by any stretch of the imagination...I grew up with pets and until the past two years, the man and I had cats (til mini-me became allergic). So, naturally, I was not a bird person as that would have been cruel to try to have wild birds around the cats, albeit, amusing.

So I had NO clue what to do with Mrs. Bird setting up shop in my ivy...not to mention I was not pleased that I could not water my ivy. Thankfully it's a hardy plant and thus far, survived.

Thanks to several facebook friends, I've learned a thing or two about birdies, and Mrs. Bird built herself a lovely little nest and took to creating some life. After much sitting and giving me evil bird looks if I walked out the back door....some little eggs appeared in the nest. (before you yell at me...no, I didn't take the plant down once the eggs appeared, I held the camera up to take pics.)

Five little white eggs appeared. We've deduced she's a wren.

So Mrs. Bird sits on said eggs for quite some time...and lo and behold...weird things start appearing (I'm still curious where the eggshells end up?)

They all hatched pretty darn fast and looked pretty odd at first. SO tiny. Mind you this nest is probably less than 8 inches across in total.

So Mrs. Bird continues to care for her babies, and I continue to NOT water my ivy (meanwhile, the strawberries and limes are rocking!) and we start to coexist. When she seems to realize I'm NOT going to take her precious babies and deep fry them, she stops trying to attack me when I go outside. She lets us play outside and she remains on the nest...watching us, but not as scared of us as before. I start to understand her call, and recognize her call out of all the birds flying around! It's pretty remarkable actually.....I'm being all Jane Goodall....

Naturally, the boys are LOVING this. Eli wants a peek every day...Harrison isn't as interested unless I bring it to his attention (the birds probably have a longer attention span than he does..) I admit....while I was once miffed she set up home in MY plant..I am willing to take one for the team and lose a plant for birdkind. And if she feeds her babies the slugs and caterpillars attempting to eat my lime leaves...then heck yeah she can stay put!

The babies are getting stronger. They poke their heads up now, look like real birds and one actually moved his wings a little bit today. Harrison wants to name them...suggested names included: Flappy, Fuzzy, Thor, Thomas and from Eli, "Birdie".
I personally will be naming this little guy, Elvis.

He's kinda cute, isn't he?

Of course I do have an incredible urge to hurl one of them at a pig...but that's probably because I play too much angry birds...

I promise not to throw any baby birds! I should point out, Mr. Bird has made quite a few appearances and he is the main 'worm bringer' of the couple. He is the one feeding them the most, and I found that quite chivalrous.
I suspect the baby birds will attempt to take flight in the next week or two, since one was already moving his wings a bit. I'm told they come back and lay eggs in the same spot, so I've not yet decided if we'll reopen Hotel Wren again, but in the meantime...we're enjoying our little natural sciences lesson! 

I'll do my best to get some video and pics of them flying!!

Until our next birdie update...
~~mama