Nestled in the Eaves

A few weeks ago, I noticed some miscellaneous weeds and twigs stuffed in the eaves above our porch. Over the weeks, the pile grew and grew.

We had ourselves a bird's nest.

My wife and I kept wondering -- Should we let a bird do that above our porch? How safe a location is that for a bird? Why did a bird pick that, of all locations, to build a nest? Should we get rid of it?

I decided to leave it be. I figured if a bird really wants to live above our porch, fine. Just as long as it doesn't poop on me.

This past weekend we heard the first microchirps. As my wife works for a state agency that gets the week of July 4th off, she's been home all week long listening to the chirps. She's called me up at work a time or two, saying "They're chirping again."

They're birds -- that's what birds do.

I saw the little muchkins for the first time yesterday. There are at least four of them, but only three at the most want to stick their heads up at any one time. I'm not sure what type of birds they are --- the mother is never really around long enough or visible enough for me to tell.

Baby birds are not the most attractive creatures on Earth. I tried taking some pictures of them. Most of the photos turned out kinda blurry - the camera doesn't like being that close to them.

The images I ended up with made the birds look like either the famous hoax profile of the Loch Ness monster, or some sort of demonic gray blob with a beak and mohawk.

I never realized that baby birds have as much hair as they do. It's kinda freaky.

I came in the house and told my wife about them, showed her the photos, and told her their names are Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Clyde. She promptly told me that I'm weird.

So we've been doing some reading up on birds. Apparently they will start trying to leave the nest and fly away in about two weeks. So until then, I guess we'll keep an eye out for them.