Baby leaves the nest

The past few weeks my children have been working on their own little science project. They stumbled upon a baby bird that had fallen out of the nest about 3 weeks ago. This was such an ugly little creature that no one wanted to even look at it. With the help of their dad they did some research. They learned that they could feed this little creature softened dog food with tweezers. They also got a dropper to give it water. They suspect that it was dehydrated when they found it. This is not a surprise as the area has been without water for a long time. I watched and grew concerned that when this little one died my children would be reminded of the pain of death.

After three days of feeding this ugly little thing every two hours it began to get it feathers. The look wasn't as bad. Then it began to beg for them when it was hungry. The cries were annoying but my children were faithful in going to take care of it.

Then the bird started jumping and flapping its wings. I warned the kids that soon it would need to be released. They assured me that it would be OK and they worked hard to identify the kind of bird it was. I hear it is a wood pecker. I was now concerned as to how humans could teach a bird to fly.
Leave it to my children to work out those little details. No one wanted to push the bird. They all loved it too much. Pooker being wise, knew that it needed a push. She moved it to a grassy area and tried to get it to release from the platform. She had to pushed it all the way off with her siblings crying their concerns the entire time.

The bird fluttered its wings and stayed above the ground for just a moment. Pooker then starting lifting it higher and higher from the ground and letting it go. The little one fly to the tree. She then continued to let it practice as she would back farther and farther away. We all clapped as it flew to the tree the first time.

These flying lessons took place over and over again. They would let it fly farther each time. Each child learned how to encourage the bird to fly. After a strong week of these practices it became time to let the bird go. We were all worried that our little wood pecker would not know what to do in the wild, but he wasn't going to stay in the box too much longer.

We were all playing outside and we let the bird fly around. It went from tree to tree and then began to climb. After it was out of ladder reach we knew the time was today. We kept track as long as we could and then we just had to say good bye and wish it well.

This was a great experience for the little T family. I got to watch them love one of God's creatures enough to sacrifice their own sleep. It was a pain to make sure someone was taking care of this baby every few hours. I am proud of my little one who did a great job taking care of this little bird. Way to go guys! Goobers, Bear, Sugar and Moogie all did a great job.