
I am sitting and feeling heavy as a pregnant elephant again. The smoke is gone and the sun is finally out. I am guilty again of scrolling through FB and getting hooked on 2 sad stories. One was the 9 year old girl thought to have been killed by her father. The other story was was about a man who got sucked into a MRI machine and died as a consequence. These news stories added no value to my life. They made me feel worse than I already did. Yet I gave them my valuable time and energy. Curiosity and human nature can be our own worse enemies.
On a cheerier note, I’ve just watched a baby robin on the deck railing. It landed there with its mother. The mother flew off, leaving baby all by itself. It took a few tentative steps, assessing the situation for quite awhile. I could see that it wants to do something but was afraid. Its body language was crying: Mom, where are you? I am scared! I was getting impatient waiting for it to make a move. Mother Robin was sitting on the telephone wire watching also.
After what seemed like an eternity to me, it hopped down the railing, hesitated, then took a small flight and landed on the barbecue. More confident, it flew back onto the railing. After a little look around, it took off in flight before I could sneak up and take a photo. The nest is empty now except for one lonely blue egg, unhatched. I wonder if it is a ‘bad’ egg. There were 5 eggs to start with. We found one egg on the ground earlier in the season. It must have been too crowded and it got booted out. After a few days the egg disappeared. Food for a predator?
The nest is well hidden among the grapes by the sunroom. The grapes have hosted a nest every year. With practice I am able to peer through the venetian blinds and spy on them. This year, I counted 3 beaks reaching for food. Now they’re gone. The nest is empty except for one lonely unhatched egg. Will mom and pop come back and fill it again this year?


