The Tall Family

We had a momma bird make a nest in the roof over our patio. A few days ago the eggs hatched and we could hear (and occasionally see) 3 baby birds. If you looked out the screen door, you could just barely see their little heads bobbing back and forth. I must have tried to get a photo of them a thousand times, but they were well trained and would duck down and hide any time I came near.

Finally, a couple days ago, I got this blurry shot of them:

You kinda have to use your imagination. This one is a little better:

Mom seriously needs to do some housekeeping, but I guess having triplets sucks up your energy and time.

Well, the day after I took those two photos, my father-in-law was sitting outside, talking on the phone when he noticed something drop from the patio roof. Turns out it was this little guy:

We know from subsequent inspection that he was the last to leave the nest. Apparently momma had to shove him out.

But he was a stubborn little punk. He just flitted over to the corner and hid while momma circled and squawked. I'm sure she was not only agitated with him, but with my father-in-law and me for endangering the life of her little stinker.

Personally, I think he was enjoying warming up in the sun and was simply going to take his sweet time before attempting to fly.

Here's a short, little video of him messing around:



After a while we just left the pair to their own devices. I'm not sure what happened to Mr. Baby Bird. My father-in-law promptly removed the nest, so I don't know if the siblings were reunited at the end of the day. I'm hoping he finally manned up and "took the plunge."

Or maybe he's decided flying is not for him and he'd rather live in a weight machine on someone's back porch.

Kids!