A few weeks ago I wrote about how communities celebrate Spring, the season of rebirth in nature.
Spring bulbs pushing through the ground, flowering trees bursting in glorious colours. Hard not to keep stopping to take pictures of the delicate blossoms along my walking routes.
A rare spring gift was a nest that a mother junco built inside our garage. My husband first noticed her at the end of March, when she flew up onto a rafter and made chittering noises at him. I imagine she is shouting “Get away from my babies!” He found a nest built between two joists and placed the blade of a covered axe as a wall to keep it from falling. If we were careful, we could catch her sitting on her nest.
On April 7, while I was with my painting group, I got a text that read “2 eggs!” and three days later 2 more eggs were added. Lovely cream coloured ovoids with brown speckles coalescing on the bottom.
Two weeks later, I was back painting and got another text : “Babies!” Naked, orangy red, with huge black eyes – babies only a mommy bird would love. Still two eggs (1 hidden under a baby) yet to hatch.
The feature photo above shows them on day 3 after hatching, growing a coat of down and opening their mouths wide to be fed.
In the picture below, it is day 6, and they are sprouting feathers. Underneath is a video of them from day 3 – sleeping downy birds. Press the play button to start the video.
Still no sign of the other two unhatched eggs; keeping fingers crossed.
On Day 11, my husband was working in the garage when they both jumped out of the nest, fluttering their wings! He helped them back into the nest. But the next day, all we found in the nest was this remnant of an undeveloped egg. By bye baby birds. Come back next year.
It was a joy to watch the birds develop and we wish them all well.
Note: Thanks to my husband for photo of 2 newly hatched babies, all other photos are mine.