Baby Birds

I have a rule around the house:  tear down bird nests that are close to the house, unless they have already laid their eggs.  Well a couple of months ago I kept seeing this bird hanging out by the patio.  It took a while, but we finally found its nest and went to tear it down, but it had eggs.  So we let the family stay and they had about 3 beautiful babies (that we could tell - they really hid the nest well under our patio roof.)  Once the babies flew the coop, I told Kim we needed to get the nest down, but then he went on travel, and we didn't think much of it.  But one of those babies (I think) decided to reuse the nest for their own family.  Grrr...    So here we are going through round 2 of babies, only this generation is not doing well.

Last week, we found a dead baby bird on the patio under the nest.  He barely had feathers.  Poor thing. Then last week, Kim was on travel and I found another baby under the nest on the patio.  This one had some feathers, but very sparse.  Definitely couldn't fly, and it looked injured.  Natalie was sleeping and it was just Alli and I.  I was sad.  I was going to have to kill the baby so it wouldn't suffer.  I've never killed anything except bugs!  Ugh.  Alli wouldn't go in the house, she wanted to watch.  I explained to her why I had to kill the baby, hoping she wouldn't get too upset.  Then I got a shovel and chopped its head off, and immediately started crying.  Alli asked why I was crying and I told her I had never killed anything like that before.  She said "That's okay mom.  You had to do it.  And it's good, because then they will make more baby birds and then we can eat them!"  Oh my gosh.  I was a bit shocked at the lack of emotion, but she'll make a great hunter or rancher someday!  haha


The last baby fell out of the nest this weekend.  It could flutter, but not fly.  It had all feathers, and actually survived a whole night on the ground.  Bagheera apparently discovered the baby bird the nest day, so Kim closed the gate so he wouldn't be able to get the baby.  But after coming home and checking on the baby, all I found was a patio full of feathers.  We have no idea what got the baby, but that was the last of the family.  We really need to pull that nest down.  It is clearly not safe anymore!