Monday, June 10, 2013

Babies Born

Today is my son's birthday, and the house wren eggs have hatched in their nest deep in a bucket. This is Audubon's picture of house wrens nesting in a hat.

My son was here for the weekend, and we confirmed the birth of the babies, which we had assumed from the mother's busy hopping along the rain gutter with various juicy bugs in her mouth, ready to regurgitate, by peeking at them in the shed and seeing two baby beaks exhaustedly resting on the rim of the nest.

Later, putting away a garden tool, one was still (or again) in the beak-on-the-rim position for sleeping, and another had leaned back, beak wide open, dreaming of regurgitated bugs. Or so I imagined.

We think there are more babies, obscured by the general cloudlike mass of gray down.

Daughter heads off to college later this summer.

Soon, I'll be an empty nester.

4 comments:

seana graham said...

Happy birthday to your son!

From what I've witnessed, empty nesting is a big transition, but my friends all seem to have adjusted sooner or later. Enjoy the summer all the more. And the baby birds. That is special.

Collagemama said...

Your nest will be full of poems waiting to hatch.

Kathleen said...

Thanks, you two!

Marcoantonio Arellano (Nene) said...

MY wife and I didn't give birth to children so we will never experience that most significant transition that I've heard often from Mothers and Fathers. I think about this most poignant concept relative to the human species and Life's natural cycle but once again it does not 'slap' me in the face the way it must for those that have had children.

I do want to echo, though, what Collagemama said that...your nest will be full of poems waiting to hatch.

Feliz compleanos a tu hijo.

Gracias for sharing mi amiga