Wordless Wednesday 8/22/12 w/ Linky!

I'm jumping on the Wordless Wednesday blog hopping party!  

Get on board and post some of your pictures!

We had some excitement in our garden this week.  A baby yellow finch was dropped off in our garden where he stayed for a couple of days.  He was nice enough to let us get some really close pictures of him.

Baby birds on the ground who look healthy, with feathers and don't seem to be hurt are called "fledglings".  They've left the nest for good and can live on the ground for up to 10 days.  As long as the momma or daddy bird comes around within an hour after noticing a baby bird, he'll be just fine.  The momma bird will make sure her baby is well taken care of.

Marcella was fascinated with this baby bird and tried very hard to convince me to bring him inside and take care of him herself.  Oh I remember the days of nursing injured birds. Like mother, like daughter!

Daddy bird keeping close eye on his baby in our backyard

 He made himself right at home and as you can see, he was very close to our kitchen window so we could watch all day.

 He eventually flew from the butterfly bush to the sad looking dead daisy bush.  He got himself up on the top and perched up there all proud for a while.

 Until we learned that our little visitor was a fledgling, we thought if we picked him up and put him closer to food and water, maybe he'd drink and want to fly away.  We learned that we are not momma birds and can't teach a baby bird fly.  Nature is so mysterious!

 The daddy bird was showing the baby bird how to fly.

 

Momma bird stopping by for baby's breakfast

The next evening, the baby bird flew from our cozy little garden to our neighbor's tree.  He spent the night up there and was gone the next day.  I tried to photoshop an arrow to show you where the baby bird is sitting but got too frustrated and gave up. (It's late)  If you can see the big gap into the tree from the right side, next to that is a small hole where you can see the sky.  It's almost exactly in the middle of the whole picture. There's a tiny tiny little round shape in that hole.  That's the baby's head.  We were so proud of our baby bird that he flew oh-so far!