[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

never say die!



I have a bird bottle under my eaves with a very late nest of Carolina Wrens.
I became concerned about the babies a couple of days ago. Wed. morning I
tapped on the bottle and three heads shot up inside. In the evening I tapped
again and just one head went up. Yesterday I tapped and nothing happened. By
yesterday evening I assumed the babies were dead from the cold and from
neglect -- I hadn't seen the parents making trips to the nest for a couple
of days. And conditions midweek reminded me of the cold rainy spring we had
(was it this year or last?) when many baby chickadees and bluebirds died. 
So last evening I took the bird bottle off its nail so I could get a really
good look inside. Three bodies, all inert. They were beautifully feathered
-- looked like miniature adults. How sad. 
I moved the bottle around so I could get more light inside, and I noticed
one baby's eyes were open. Barely surviving, I assumed, the last to go. Then
I rotated the bottle some more and noticed that the other two babies also
had open eyes, even though they didn't so much as twitch as I tilted their
home this way and that and stared at them. 
The joke was on me! There wasn't a thing wrong with these youngsters. They
must have had enough feathers to stay warm by the time our cold spell hit,
and their parents kept them fed when I wasn't looking. They're set to leave
the nest any minute. Today is day 13 from Aug. 26th when I first saw
evidence that the eggs had hatched. They'll make it, and I'm glad.
Ever the pessimist,
Ginger_Travis@unc.edu
Chapel Hill