Broiled Bird

We had a short heat wave.

And these house finches decided to make their nest in my bird feeder under a plexiglass dome. So the mother bird was sitting on her nest, her wings spread out. 

She was literally panting. 

She looked like she was in a Lamaze class, practicing pushing out a chicken egg. Poor little thing.

I thought her and her mate were smart, building their nest in a place where the blue jays couldn’t go and it’s next to food and water.

Then I realized they had made their nest in a solar oven. Her eggs were going to be cooked. It was like one of those exotic Asian dishes, roasted bird in nest with broiled eggs. 

I couldn’t let this culinary calamity happen, so I decided to act fast. 

I waited until the mama bird flew the coop; with the stealth of Bigfoot I opened our double-hung window and pulled the feeder inside. There was a cluster of five small, light blue eggs at the bottom of the nest. 

I cleaned the plexiglass dome, wrapped a dishtowel around the top to block the sun and kept the finches from being fried.

I hung the feeder back where it had been and waited for mom to come back. 

At first she was a little suspicious of the weird shroud draped over her offspring. It took her about an hour to settle back down to the job at hand.

 

Comments

[Rich Binell]

I love this story. You are so kind.

[chigiy]

She is at again. The pair of House Finches just had their forth clutch of eggs for the season. They have successfully launched three other broods this year. Busy busy birdies