"The Birds, the birds"

Did I quote that right? (The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock)

A few weeks back I see a bird swooping down toward my house with weeds in beak for building a nest. I peeked to see where they had flown to build their home. I was quite surprised after scanning the trees, the rain gutters, and other places to see they had chosen to build their next in the chains of my bike. The bike hangs upside down when not in use, so apparently the birds felt it had been hanging there long enough to consider it a suitable place to settle down and procreate.

I would check things out on occassion and when Mama bird was not home, I took a peek and saw the eggs. I thought that was neat and so the kids and I have been keeping an eye on things.

This past week, no Mama in sight, I saw a egg shell down below the bikes. I took out the ladder, scanned the sky for any incoming diving birds and with camera in hand took a pic of the fuzzy babies.

On Sunday, when Mama was in the nest, I could see two heads beside her and who can resist taking a pic of Mama and her babies. It was dusk, so I had to have the flash on. I apologized profusely as I blinded the birds with my flash and hoped she would chose to protect her babies instead of retaliating against me. She chose the former, smiled for the camera (as much as birds can) and kept her babies warm.

We will continue to keep an eye on the birds and hopefully in the next couple of weeks, we will get to see them gather their strength and fly off to bigger things and we will once again be able to ride the bike.