All things bright and beautiful

Yesterday evening, as I was watering the garden, I noticed the gentle squeaking of baby birds in a birdhouse gourd that I had placed on one of my trellises. I was aware that there were baby birds nearby somewhere as I had seen Mama or Papa wren carrying around food for their babies.

Now it isn’t uncommon for birds to nest in my garden as the many tall sunflowers and the bird houses provide good shelter for them. This year, I have had several batches of sparrows and swallows successfully raise their young despite many territorial squabbles. From time to time the swallows seemed upset by my presence in the garden and would dive bomb me in an attempt to chase me out.

Last year, I had a wren nestle twice in one of the bird houses. Strangely, it preferred the largest of the bird houses at the time, much to the chagrin of the sparrows. This year, a gardening friend of mine have given me a birdhouse gourd. As soon as I placed that gourd into my garden, a wren started to build a nest in it. That inspired me to add some more birdhouse gourds that I had kept from last year’s harvest. Initially, the wrens did not seem interested. But I did notice that a nest was being built in one of the gourds, because it was right at my eye level.

I must have been standing many times almost eye-to-eye with these baby birds without even noticing it. But the gentle sounds that they made last night drew my attention. As I carefully peeked into the gourd I could immediately see three widely open beaks begging for food. I was very lucky that I could take a couple of pictures with my cell phone of these baby birds. Then I moved away so as to not disturb them unnecessarily. One of the parents was around but did not seem worried or panicked, which might have been because they’re quite accustomed to me in the garden.

After I had backed away, I saw the parents resume the feeding routine. All remained well in little bird paradise.