Thanks berry much

Thanks berry much

Feathers?  Check. Wings? Check.  Too big for this nest? Check.  Let’s go!  Wheeeeeeee.  That was fun.  Let’s go back up.  Uh oh….

The baby blackbird had made her first flight from the nest… and discovered that while she had wings and feathers and looked like a real bird, she couldn’t actually fly.  She landed, surprised looking, in our back yard.

Her attempts at flying only got her as far as the ledges on our retaining walls where she left small white deposits along the way.  “Ugh, looks like sour cream,” observed my daughter, and hence the little bird got her name.

“She’s eaten so many of our blueberries she can’t take off!” exclaimed my partner, whose advanced understanding of physics is often useful to us.

This may have been true; for several days the blackbird family had been raiding our blueberries.  We initially tried to shoo them away, but when we realised the blueberries were not being eaten on the spot but were a takeaway meal for some junior blackbird, we got soft hearted and let them in. 

Sour Cream was indeed a plump bird, well fattened on our produce, but also somewhat defenceless.

She hopped around the yard, occasionally hiding under ferns.

If we went out to see her, she stood still, like a statue.

Night was coming – what would happen to her?  The million cats that roam Mt Victoria would surely make short work of a young bird that couldn’t fly. 

We tried picking her up and putting her in a cardboard box but that caused daddy bird to hover around anxiously.

In the end we realised this was nature and we needed to let it take its course.  I lay awake that night worrying about Sour Cream, cold and alone under the ferns, and whether she would be there in the morning.

But she proved to be remarkably resilient.  Not only did she survive the night, but several more nights.  Her skill at staying stock still probably helped disguise her from predators, and our past history of squirting roaming cats with water guns no doubt also assisted in keeping the yard feline-free.

Every day her parents came to feed her.  Daddy and mummy blackbird took turns pulling juicy bugs from the lawn and popping them into little Sour Cream’s mouth, occasionally supplemented by a blueberry for dessert. 

We crept carefully around the backyard, trying not to stress her out.  As time went on, her flutters grew stronger.  Eventually she made it to the top of the fence, by rebounding off the wall of the house.

“Parkour!” shouted my daughter.

Despite her growing prowess at flying, her parents continued to feed her.  She observed them digging bugs out of the lawn and made half-hearted efforts herself, until finally she got the knack.

Usually birds look all the same, so it’s been nice to get to know this particular bird family, and trace the progression of one youngster from fledgling through to being able to independently feed herself.

We get our blueberries from New World now.