we've been terrible nesters.

Apparently we're not the only nesters in our nest. Saturday ended up being a very sad day here on chestershire road.

While cleaning and airing out some towels out on the deck, I discovered a pre-mature baby bird lying dead and alone on the ground. I weeped and called the hubby to check it out. He began to wonder how in the world could that little baby bird end up where it did, which was on the corner side of our deck. When he looked up he realized there could possibly be a nest in our dryer vent!

"OHHH, GREAT!!! I HAVE THE DRYER ON!!!!", I yelled. Traumatized and worried, I ran as fast as I could to turn the dryer off.

Ronnie grabbed a latter and pulled out a beautiful little nest. He looked inside and didn't see any more birds. So, he threw it on the ground to get it out of the vent. He panicked and said "that could have caused a fire!" and I replied with "You're right! Or KFC for dinner!" (I was crying when I said that, BTW. I do have a heart!)

Anyways, to our surprise, though (this is horrible we know!), THERE WERE MORE BABY BIRDIES IN THE NEST! They were now down on the ground below in the garden where Ronnie dropped the nest!

Ronnie ran down as quickly as he could, and picked up the birdies to put them back in their nest. Ronnie was PALE AS A GHOST. He was mortified. Only 1 survived that fall. And from that point on it was all about the bird for another 3 hours. We watched and worried and hoped the parent would return.

Here's Ronnie trying to figure out where to lay the nest for the parent to return.

I called our local wildlife rehab center. I followed their directions. We waited for the parent to arrive and she did! She came to feed the little one that remained. And we sheltered it and did everything we could to save it.

But after we returned from dinner that evening, the last remaining birdie was not in her nest. We don't know what happened. And we were sad to see it wasn't there.

Can you believe this happened? Surely, this must happen all the time. But we are slowly still assimilating to the country life here of having all sorts of species in our backyard. (deers, grasshoppers, robins, bats in the summer, you get the picture!) We told the neighbors about it (who are native NCilians) and they shrugged and laughed at our attempt to save the little family!

I guess we're just amateurs. *sigh*