Where, Oh Where Did My Babies Go?
— I looked into the eyes of the grandfather!
Today, in my spot of the world — Nantasket Bay in Hull, Massachusetts — it seemed I was the first human to awaken. Forty feet high on my treetop deck that overlooked a bay whose water was smooth as glass, it was only me, my two cats Winkles and Twinkles and feathered friends flying about in nature.
The coffee and the sunshine were each as great as the other!
The new sun rose from the ocean and shimmered through tall trees, leaving a cast of branched leaf shadows dancing on shingles of my house. Also depicted was an occasional bird bouncing its shadow image from branch to branch. My cat Winkles was transfixed only on the shadow images instead of what was real all around him. I couldn’t convince Winkles otherwise to concentrate on what was real.
But, to a cat, I suppose shadow images are real!
My Birdhouse
I have a bird house about five feet off my deck. Here, three baby sparrows were born a couple of weeks ago. Daily, I observed their growth as they grew larger and louder. I mostly watched their mouths with want for food and the duty of the parents who fed them.
I, a proud human!
But, today, there was no feeding. No baby sparrows had appeared in the hole of the birdhouse. I couldn’t imagine they were still sleeping while other birds joyfully fidgeted and darted about this glorious morning sky. But, to me, it seemed too soon that the baby sparrows would fly.
I wondered. I worried.
Did these babies fledge into their first flights before I awoke? Did hungry hawks, who fly over from the other side of the bay, swoop down and whisk ‘em away in a nature grab? Did something else take them? Alien sparrow abduction? The thoughts were inescapable: Where were the babies?
I so care for these baby birds, I hang about two feet below the birdhouse an upside-down umbrella with holes for drainage and grass, plants and pillow feathers for secondary nesting. I do this so the babies won’t fall a 40-foot drop to certain death. I checked. None of the babies were in the umbrella. So they hadn’t fallen out of the birdhouse.
Except for the distant coo of a morning dove, a sweet song from a cardinal and several chirping sparrows, I’m caught in the quietude of this moment. But I’m completely mystified.
Each sip of coffee brought an extra thought: “Where did my baby sparrows go?”
Also unusual was the mother sparrow, who did most of the feeding, was absent. Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow had already proven they were among the best of all parents. They dutifully protected and tended their babies. They seemed like perfectly proud parents!
But this morning, near the birdhouse, only the father sparrow and what appeared as an older, fatter, grandfatherly-like sparrow were present. These two kept fledging all around the birdhouse, but I couldn’t see the babies.
Something had happened. I didn’t know what it was.
As time passed, eventually came plenty of cousin sparrows flying about the nearby trees and rooftops. Although some seemed very tiny, I couldn’t imagine my baby sparrows had assumed adult-like feathering overnight. Or had they? Could all three of ‘em now be mingling with others and enjoying maiden flights?
It seemed so hard to fathom.
Meanwhile, at the side corner of the house, where very intuitive starlings nest, they were greeting the new morning with persistently screeching scraggy voices. Except for the missing baby sparrows, it all seemed a perfect normal morning. Mr. and Mrs. Starling, noisy as ever, continually brought tiny worms and things to their chirping babies within their nest. Yes, these babies would soon fledge and fly.
As I watched and as I learned, this beautiful early morning also showed me the tiniest squirrel I’d ever seen. To the front of the house, it was fidgeting atop a telephone poll. Once it got its bearings it determinedly sped off in a one-way destination fast along cable wire … never to be seen again! Meanwhile, in the back of the house, an older squirrel was scouting the strongest tree. My guess he was prepping for a new nest. For decades this particular tree had housed hundreds of squirrels.
This amazing morning eventually saw a large crow with three smaller ones fly in from the distance, making all kinds starts and stops along the way. They began dominating the air with distinctive and intimidating cawing, their presence ever known.
As the new morning wore, it became a mix of sparrow chirps, starling snarls and squawking crows with me in the company of my curious kittycats who’ve been staunchly taught never to go for the birds. The morning dove and the cardinals had found something else to do and, meanwhile, the squirrels went off busy.
Except for these beautiful sounds of nature I was blessed with quietude. At this point in time, I am still the only human!
Then along came a man with the horrible sound of a weed whacker. My next thought became how we’ve priced our planet at the expense of the true cost of nature.
As the day evolved I kept a stern watch through the trees. I eventually found my babies. They were fledging on lower tree branches under the deck. I came to realize the other sparrows who visited on this day were each celebrating their flight, all of this under the watchful eyes of the grandfather sparrow.
At one point I looked into the eyes of wisdom of the grandfather bird. I, a proud human!
Below, is a drone video taken by my neighbor who lives across the street. You can see where I live when the drone takes off. I’m in the tall shingled house in the treetops behind the two brown houses as the drone leaves.
