A different kind of baby photo... O.o

[ellenmillion]

So this morning, my parents went to take their dog and mine for a walk... and Norway got distracted under the porch. Dad, seeing something small that Norway was after, thought it was a vole, and moved the bag of straw we had stored there. Not a vole - a bird's nest. In possibly the stupidest place for a bird's nest ever:





It was too late for one of them (poor little fuzzball), but there are four very terrified, blinky little birds in that nest.

And no, the nest had not fallen, it was built there, just sort of stuffed under a flap of plastic bag. I had noticed a bird would frequently fly out from under the porch when I came outside, but just assumed there were some tasty seeds or bugs there. It's amazing they lasted this long. I believe they are juncos. Mom is definitely still around and very loudly miffed.

While part of me feels like being eaten by my dog would be a very appropriate and Darwin part of the lifecycle (really, they are too stupid to live!), the Samaritan in me called Fish and Game, where they asked if I could protect it from the dog and leave it in place. Hmm. Not really very easily, that's for sure. I suppose I could put skirting all around the porch, but I suspect he would dig at it. Jake's going to look into some kind of chicken wire, so we'll see.

In more normal baby news, I got AMAZING sleep last night. The getting to sleep was absolutely brutal, with several hours of fussing ranging between shrill complaining babbles and outright shrieking, but the sleep itself hit new records: a 5.25 hour patch and a 3 hour patch. Between them was an hour of 'I'm done sleeping!' that took some overcoming, but still... feeling much refreshed. Miraculously, no diaper blow-outs, though they were VERY full. And yes, I have a photo for the day - Guppy fell asleep trying to pull on the ladybug, and stayed this way for a good 20 minutes before her hand slipped off:



Some programming now; I've got some paid work on my plate, and my brain feels together enough to deal with it.

Comments

[sholio]

Awwww! Baby birds - so cute! And yet ... so stupid. *g* (We have occasionally lost bird nests around here to inquisitive dogs, also. You have the whole woods to build nests in, you idiot birds! Why would you do it in a place that's full of dogs and people?)

[jenny heidewald (from livejournal.com)]

Maybe it is warm there? Though it looks like that sort of bird builds its nest in the grass anyways.

http://news.deltanewsweb.com/news/2009/07/02/photo-of-the-day-july-1-3/

I call doves Stupid Birds...my sister told me one year that they'd built a nest.... and then it fell out of the tree. Stupid Birds! >_<

Yaayyy more sleep, even if it was preceded by a ruckus. <:)

[hailerro.livejournal.com]

No one ever said birds were the smartest of creatures.

I saw two ravens the other day, on my porch, that were literally dive bombing a cat that had decided to sun itself there. I woke up to the oddest chirpy hissing sounds and discovered the birds were the ones making the hissy noises. At the cat. I suspect they may have a nest in the bush next to the patio. (At least, I assume they were trying to protect something rather than just being suicidal and toying with the cat). Eventually they got the cat to leave.

Sadly, I think one of them must've pushed their luck later in the week because our dog found a dead raven out that way recently. (Either it died very heroically, trying to save it's young, or it was very foolish in tempting fate and got a little too close to those claws and teeth).

[pixiewildflower.livejournal.com]

:)