Monday, June 9, 2008

Our Feathered Friends

Last year, after spring had started, Dave and I noticed some activity going on in a hole in the roof overhang of our apartment. As it turns out, a family of birds had taken up residence there. A momma bird had laid (...lain?) her eggs in there, and soon they hatched into adorable little squeaking chicks!

This year, the momma bird (and I guess her mate, too) returned, and raised another little flock of babies in our roof. Here are some shots:

(Here is the hole. If you look at the large version of the picture, you can see the babies sticking their heads out!)

(Either the momma bird or the daddy, watching over the babies from afar)

(momma feeding the babies! It was kind of an awkward angle to get into the nest. Sometimes she'd just feed them like this and fly away instead of going all the way in.)

In case you were wondering: why, yes, baby birds squawking all day, every day, for nearly a month IS annoying. The older they grew, the louder noises they'd make. And each time the momma would bring more food, they'd start making all the noise they could. Lucky for us, they flew away about a week and a half ago, and things are once again quiet around here.

Don't get me wrong, though...we loved having them live in our roof. It's just that there comes a time when kids finally need to move out!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

that's so cool! my parents have a family of doves that took up residence in the fake gargoyle thingie above their garage so we've been getting photos of that, too. when i was a kid i remember some other bird, probably a cactus wren, made a nest in the tubing behind our basketball hoop, and then had a bunch of babies in the spring. the best part of that whole endeavor was when she kicked the fledglings out of the nest to learn to fly in the grass alongside our driveway and then dive-bombed we hapless humans every time we left the house...good times, good times.

Unknown said...

nice new background, by the way.

Karen said...

That's cool. I was afraid that I'd get attacked my the momma bird, but she was pretty scared of us.