Baby Birds Abounding

THIS is the time for baby birds! We were delighted to welcome a family of house wrens to our gourd bird box and watched the parents build the nest, then bring tasty tidbits to their young. If we timed it just right - after the parent had flown from the box but when the babies were still clamouring for food - we could just see their tiny beaks begging for the next delicacy behind the stick wall. They were loud! Both the babies and the parents, whose joyful song turned to a fiercely protective clicking whenever we went in that part of the garden. Then we observed the babies fledging, hopping from low branch to low branch as the parents watched, encouraged and warded off danger.

But that was not all. Around the garden and on walks we noticed baby birds on several occasions. First noticeable by the little cheaping noises, the babies are not obviously smaller but are definitely fluffier and tend to sit or hop closer to people rather than fly away. This week a baby robin allowed me to approach for a photo while its parent watched suspiciously from a tree. We then watched the mama bring food to her baby in our climbing tree continuously for two hours. Then on a walk we saw a red-bellied woodpecker mama and baby high up in a tree and a family of Carolina wrens hopping around in a bush.