Empty Nest

As I write this, the nest is empty.  This has been an experience I won’t soon forget.

Remember the nest with the egg in it from the last post?  I was wrong.  There must have been four eggs, because four hungry baby birds appeared.

And hungry doesn’t even begin to describe it.  If those little birds ever slept, I never saw it.  Mother bird and father bird both had to pull their weight to feed the mouths in that nest.  The nest was a hub of activity.  As soon as those blind ravenous little things sensed a parent was returning with a worm, their heads would pop up, jostling for position, ready to receive that succulent morsel.

It gives us some comfort for Lillian and I to think we have it pretty hard.  Woe is we.  But if we ever got a chance to sit down, we’d watch the nest, and it was a continuous series of one parent after another flying in, feeding, gathering waste, and flying off for more food.  And after a week, those parent birds were half the size they were when they started.

The chicks grew like it was nobody’s business.  Less than three weeks after we saw the first egg, the first fledgling was out of the nest, stretching his wings.  Within one day of that, all four baby birds were gone.

The nest that was a nonstop center of activity is now empty.  It’s silly to make the obvious comparison, but it was all too fast and immediate, and I can’t help but project how I’m going to feel when my kids leave.  I’m going to put in a little extra effort to love what I have now.

(More pictures of the birds can be found here.)

Who We Were Then
  • David
  • Lillian
  • Maddie (4 years old)
  • Aaron (2 years old)