Gone to the Birds!

We had an interesting scene in our mailbox this summer –we kept finding leaves inside and Chris thought the neighbor was playing a joke on us or something. But when it kept filling up, we realized it was a bird trying to make a nest there! We kept removing the leaves and the bird kept putting them back – she was so persistent we decided to just let her build it! Poor thing probably didn’t know what she was getting herself in to! Between the mail coming and us & the kids peeking in, I’m surprised she stayed! But sure enough, she built a nice little nest and laid 4 tiny eggs there.

Every time we’d open the front door, she’d fly away and we’d hurry and get the mail so she could get back to her babies! Not sure what happened, but one day we saw one of the eggs had rolled out of the nest (or maybe mama bird pushed it out) down to the bottom of the mailbox. Maybe it was a dud anyway?? Then one day…

One of the eggs hatched!

And a few days later, the other 2 had hatched:

They were so cute with their little mouths open wide for food!

Pretty soon, the smaller 2 birds that had hatched later were down in the bottom of the mailbox. I was so afraid they would die by getting smashed by mail or that the mama bird wouldn’t feed them if they were down there, but I didn’t know what to do! I didn’t want to touch them and then mama bird smell me & not feed them, so I left them. The next day, one of the small ones had died in the bottom so I decided to move the other little one back to the nest. I did and the mama bird seemed to be feeding it again so I thought it might make it. Meanwhile, the first born was getting big! One day it was sitting on top of the nest peeking out of the mailbox and it got scared when I went to get the mail and it fluttered out of the mailbox. The kids and I tried to get it back in but it just kept hopping around and it hopped away in to the bushes so we just left it. Hopefully mama bird helped that one out because the little one that was left didn’t make it either. It was a little sad but maybe mama bird will find a safer place to have her babies next year!