Birds of a feather

It appears that some local small birds like to build nests in the support rafters of our outside decking. The children thought this was all pretty good. They could hear the baby birds chirping and then see the mother bird swoop under the deck and go into the nest, feeding them. But, one Sunday, the birds had grown too big and the nest fell to the ground. But the baby birds were still too small to fly. The children gathered them up and put them in what was left of the nest. We had to go to Mass and we told the children we would see what we could do later.

Upon returning, two of the five birds had waddled off. James and Clare found them and put them back in the nest. David did some research on the Internet and found out that the best way to save the baby birds was to put up another nest near the first. The best we could do was to hang up a brightly coloured Easter basket from a hook screwed into the rafters. The old bird nest plus more stuffing was placed in the basket, and the baby birds placed in it. We then stood back and waited.
Next day we heard the birds chirping and the children saw the mother bird fly into the new nest! Great! The children’s handling of the baby birds did not stop the mother from feeding them.

Three baby birds asking, “Are you my mother?”