foolish

So.

So there are these robins.  They have a nest on the back side of our garage/workshop, right on top of some of our gardening tools that we haven't used since before they built the nest last spring.....

Last year mama laid 4 eggs.

4 chicks.

This year, 3 eggs.  mama robin and I got close.  I puttered around doing gardening stuff, she figured out that I'm safe and stayed put on those pretty little blue eggs.  It was going swimmingly.  I sang to her, told her not to worry.  etc.

3 chicks.

Today I picked Claire up to take a peek, as we've been doing..... not too close.  just peekably-close.

well.

They're old enough now, it seems, to fly off that little inconveniently-placed nest.  And that's just what they did.  2 of them anyway.  Never saw #3.

It gets worse.

Wolfie (that's our dog, if you didn't know) ran over to "get" one.  ahem.  I'm not sure what he intended to do, but he dropped it immediately when he heard the tone of my voice.  the somewhat primal, I-mean-it-you-damn-well-better-do-exactly-as-I-say kind of tone.

little birdy had a bloody shoulder.

Now I know, I know all the talk of not touching baby birds, of leaving nature be, etc.  That's what I studied in college, more or less.  animals, nature, ecology, etc.

But it was a little late to not be messing with mama nature seeing as how it was me who startled those cuties right off their safe little nest in the first place, ya know? So I picked up the birdy, dabbed it's shoulder clean with a cloth, and put it back in the nest.  back out.  back in.

well, damn.

So I blocked off the area so the nosy pup couldn't get back there (which isn't to say it was at all cat proof, of course....), tried one last time to put the baby up out of harm's way, looked around for the others, and then let them be.

Claire could tell I was upset.  Not that it was hard to tell, really, but she just knows when anything is a little off.  She reads my tone, my eyes.... she knows.  She asked me if I was sad and then showered me with kisses, asking after each one if I was still sad.  I was, but there's no denying those 2 year old kisses were strong medicine.

I took myself away from the scene for a while, best for everyone.  Hours later, I noticed mama and papa robin in a new area.  Closer to the ground.  On a brush pile in the neighbor's yard.

I do so hope that they were able to coax those little babes out of harm's way into the safety of that brush pile, and that those little ones are nearly ready to truly fledge.  That the bloody little shoulder heals quickly.

I know that all sounds a bit naive, but it's what I'm going with for now.
Feeling meddlesome, sad, and foolish.
Thinking of all the time and energy those dedicated robins put into that nest, those eggs, those babes.....
Hoping, hoping, hoping that they are safe and sound.

And thinking that after all is said and done and it sits empty for good for the year, I'm moving that nest.