The nest...

Remember last year when I wrote about the birds nest that I saw up at Paul's cabin? Well, go back and read it if you need a refresher... it's a must to understand this story...

This years nest...

Last week when we were up at Paul's cabin I was getting some things out of the car and was walking back into the cabin. I looked up to the pillar by the front door where the birds nest was last year... and the nest was still up on the pillar! I remembered how I had seen those four beautiful eggs in the nest last year and wanted to see the nest. I thought it was cool that they had left the nest up there and wanted to look at it (yes, this is actually what I was thinking... just proof that my brain is not functioning correctly anymore...).

So I reached up to pick up the nest, but it was pretty high up and I didn't have a great hold on it. It made it about halfway down and then it slipped out of my poor grasp... and much to my surprise as it hit the ground... three baby birds tumbled out. I honestly thought that it was the nest from last year, it didn't even cross my mind that the nest could actually be occupied!!! Now that I think about it, of course it was a new nest that was occupied! Probably by the same robin who thought she had found a great spot to nest her babies last year.... I felt awful!

I was so shocked that I called for Michelle to come out and help me. I thought that for sure I had killed these babies and I felt so bad. There lying helpless on the cabin porch were these three babies and one blue egg that didn't hatch, that broke in the fall and egg shells were scattered on the ground. Michelle picked up each bird and put it back in the nest and I put the nest back up on the pillar. I couldn't believe my carelessness... seriously? The last thing I would ever ever ever want to do is kill some mama's babies...

I felt pretty awful about this for a while. We were back up there a few days later and Paul told me that the mother had been back feeding her babies and that they were all still alive. We held a stick above the nest and knocked on the wall to wake them up, and sure enough three little beaks rose above the rim of the nest and started looking for food. Later that night I saw the mom sitting on the nest, keeping her babies warm. I was so worried that the mom would smell us on them and abandon her babies, but that didn't seem to happen. I'm so glad that I didn't kill the babies (and believe me, I would not be sharing this story if I had...)

If you look closely you can see the little beaks peaking out...

Then later I got thinking about the three babies... the four babies... the one egg that didn't hatch. This may sound a bit superstitious or dumb, but I felt like it was another sign to me that I will have more babies someday. When I saw the four eggs in the nest last year it gave me hope that I would have more children someday... and seeing the three birds and the one egg that didn't make it gave me more hope that even though I had my baby that didn't make it, there will be more to come someday. I honestly try not to think about having more kids at this time in my life. It's too hard and it's not something that I can do any time soon, so why worry about it and think about it to just make myself feel bad or hopeless. But I do like these little occasions when I do feel like I'm getting a soft nudge that someday I will have my own baby birds in my nest.