The Ridiculous Little Bird.

This morning I was awake but too lazy to get up. As I lay in bed I kept hearing a tap on the window. At first I thought it was rain but no that wasn't it. I guessed it was windy and something kept blowing against the window, Perhaps a leaf or a pebble. or some stray trash from the neighbor's yard (all the trash in our yard belongs to a neighbor - we don't have any of our own trash in our yard because the wind blows it away.)

Finally, unable to guess what was taping on our window every few seconds I got up and pushed aside the curtain to look out. I didn't see anything and the noise stopped. every morning for the next week I heard the same sound but it always stopped when I got up to look ( I know I started this story with "This morning" and now I've talked about about future mornings but when I started I didn't know this would take more than one day).

On Saturday I was hanging around the house and decided to walk around to see what could be tapping on my window. The window sticks out about an inch, maybe 2 inches from the wall of the house. On the top ledge of the window was a pile of sticks. Little twigs and some pine needles. Apparently these twigs were falling off one by one. There was a bigger pile of twigs on the ground beneath the window.

I couldn't reach the top ledge of the window to brush of the twigs so instead I layed on the hammock and wondered where all those little twigs came from. I must have fallen asleep and then I woke up to the sound of a twig hitting the window. Every 10 or 15 seconds another one was taping on the window. I opened my right eye and peeked out. Then I opened my left eye too. I saw a little bird bringing twigs to the window. She was trying to build a nest but most of the twigs fell to the ground. (hitting the window on the way down.) I watched for maybe half an hour and that ridiculous little bird kept repeating her folly. Making no headway on building the nest she just kept doing it anyway. The nest got no larger but the pile of twigs on the ground was growing.

I got up to tell the bird a better place to build but she disappeared. So I left her alone. Everyday I heard the twigs hitting the window. Now at least I knew what that sound was. After awhile I didn't even pay attention. Then one day several weeks later I happened to be out back cutting the grass because my regular lawn guy was on vacation. That pile of twigs on the ground had grown to over 2 feet tall. The next month I looked out the window and saw the pile of twigs just below the bottom of the window. A few days later I went outside to check on the bird. The nest above the window was still just a few twigs but the bird had made a nest on top of the pile of twigs. She sat in her nest when I went out to look. She didn't even try to fly away. Just sat very still. Next week I looked out the window and saw the nest with 3 little eggs in it. The bird flew back to the nest while I watched. The bird looked at me and I looked at the bird. Next time I was at Walmart I bought some birdseed and a suet holder that stuck to the outside of the window so the bird would have a nearby snack. The bird was eating the suet. I could now watch her out the window. I threw some seeds on the ground for her. One day I noticed the eggs had hatched. The ridiculous little bird had become a momma. Guess what else I noticed. When it rained the nest stayed dry. There were just enough twigs above the window to push the rain out beyond the birds nest. Hmmm that ridiculus little bird had made quite a nice home for herself. And got me to buy her food. I wonder how that all worked out. Maybe she wasn't so rediculous after all.