Birds!

Wasn't sure what category I could put this in, so I figured the fun section, since to me it's fun.     Anyway, we live in Virginia now, surrounded by woods, which means LOTS of critters, everywhere.  At the start of spring I bought two new ivy plants and hung them outside the front door on the patio overhang.  They were thriving and looking great, but I must not have been the only one who thought so.....one day I went to go water one of the plants and reached up to press my finger into the soil, seeing if it was dry, and next thing I know there's bird wings fluttering in my ear!   I jumped back, with my nerves on end, and thought, "no!.....a bird did NOT just fly out of my plant!....no way!" 

Yes way! 

The bird that had burst out of the pot was now on top of the patio wall, looking sideways at me.  I called Tom outside and we took the plant down and looked in, and lo and behold.........there's a nest in there!   I don't have any personal experience looking at bird's nests, and I always assumed all of them were bowl shaped.   I mean, that's what they show us as kids....bowl shaped nests.     But this one....it was round, and had a ROOF.   The opening was on the side!   It was nestled in the pot, partially obscured by the ivy plant, and sheltered by the patio overhang.   Talk about clever!  (we didn't touch the nest or anything btw, we just observed.)     And just looking at how this nest was made.....it makes you shake your head and go "How the hell do they DO that????!"   Somehow, someway, this bird can create a huge hollow ball of intricately woven pieces of twigs and whatnot, and even leave a nice little opening on the side!    God, I mean, that's just amazing. 

Tom grabbed a flashlight and we peered inside......there were already 4 little white eggs in there.  !   They don't waste any time!   I had last watered the plant maybe only 6 days before.   And between then and now a bird had scouted the location, built a nest, then plopped out 4 eggs!!   So now I'm like, Uh oh, well alright.  There goes the plant then I guess.   Will sacrifice my plant to give life to 4 little birds.       

So, we hung it back up, and it's been fun to watch the entire process as it goes along.  I researched the life span of birds online, as well as birds nest, just out of curiosity to learn more.   It's amazing.  If you haven't researched it it's worth a look, although it's certainly more fun when you have a nest right outside your front door that you can watch. My cat sits in the window now with a front row seat for all these noisy, busy birds flying to and fro, and she does that involuntary "cat bird chirp" thing.  You cat owners probably know what I'm talking about, it's so cute.  When cats see birds they can't help it, they begin making this chirring, chirping noise.     It's her television......KittyVision.     Every day we can hear the little babies squealing in the nest to be fed.....it actually sounds much like a high pitched electronic noise.   You can see the pot start to move around and swing a bit as the birds fuss about in the nest, it's really cute.   

This morning I noticed that the parent bird seemed to be perched on the patio wall, calling out repeatedly, over and over, while the babies squealed excitedly from the nest.  I laughed about it to myself thinking, what, is she teasing the birds?  haha!  "Who's got the food??  Who's got the food??  Does MOMMY have the food??  Does MOMMY have the food???   Look!!!  It's FOOD!!!"  while the babies go bonkers "FEED US!!!  FEED US!!!  WORMS!!  BUGS!!   SEEDS!!!  FEED FEED FEED!!"   But then I remembered....wait......I read about that online......that's what birds do when they want to begin enticing the babies to leave the nest....they stand outside the nest with the food to try to get them to leave and learn how to fly.  !  ding ding ding.  Lightbulb!  So I decided it was time to switch the pot location with the other ivy plant, because the location is very poor for when the babies begin to fly on their own for the first time.  They're sitting over concrete, and the nest opening faces a tall concrete wall about 8 feet away.    Not good.  If they don't go splat onto the concrete they might fly into the wall instead.   So I swapped it out for the other one which faces out towards the land and woods.   There's even a little tree straight ahead, if the mom wants to perch there to get them to fly.    Much better!   As soon as I did that and went back inside the mom bird was already back in the nest in the new and improved location.

So at any rate, the plant has withered up now and is dead, but, it's teeming with life.  !   Just thought I'd share this story, since to me it's pretty cool.