Baby Bird

I've got pix! And they WILL be posted.

About a month or six weeks ago, I bought a lovely hanging plant with these riotous fuschia bell-like flowers. I hung it on a nail out on the balcony, and when I lay in my hammock I could enjoy it as a sign of spring.

Well, on a dreary Friday morning about three weeks ago, I saw an enormous bird fly out of my plant. Hmm. Ok. I didn't think much of it until that evening, when JS from work came over and I told her the story. As emphasis, I walked out onto the porch to look in, and there was the bird. JS insisted it was a pigeon. I protested, guessing it was a mourning dove, though I didn't think I had ever seeen one before. Turns out it is a mourning dove. But mourning doves are in the pigeon family, so we were both right.

Evidently I spooked the bird, because she flew away. JS suggested the bird might be nesting. Absurd! Why would a bird nest in my plant? So I took the plant off the nail, and sure enough, a perfect pearlescent gray-white egg lay nestled inside, just off-center, in the little hollow its mama had made.

My first reaction was disbelief, then shock, then pride. Finally, as the days and weeks passed, I was like a nervous first-time parent. I scoured websites for information on mourning dove gestation, and read that it takes two weeks for eggs to hatch. So, I watched and waited, and witnessed such a vigil as I could not have imagined. That mama bird DID NOT MOVE. Not once in three weeks. Not when Mojo or I would hang out on the porch. Not when papa bird would stop by. Not when a spring storm literally rained torrents onto her head the other night, and she gasped for air under the coursing water.

The night of that rainstorm, I had a terrible dream. According to that first website, my baby bird was a week late. Was it dead? Would it never even hatch? The idea of that mother bird nearly drowning to protect a dead egg evidently really preyed on my subconscious. In my dream, the mama bird finally gave up and left. I took down the plant (which was, in my dream as it is in real life, pretty much dead. I can't very well dump Miracle-Gro into a birds' nest, can I?)

Anyway, when I examined the abandoned nest in my dream, there were three eggs. The largest was the one I had actually seen, but now it was half-melted, sticky, chalky, and very cold. Parts of the shell were so thin I could see the suffocated chick pressed against the membrane inside, eyes clenched. The other two eggs were in the same condition, but much smaller and deformed. They were never even viable.

The sight of these abberations in my dream disgusted me, but I couldn't help but look and look and look. More than anything, I felt this inchoate sadness, like it was me who had had lost my own offspring. When I woke up, I could hear the endless chorus of birds roosting in the trees outside my bedroom window, and felt that quiet, distance loss.

So later that morning, I got online at work and did a little more research. Come to find out, according to a different source, hatching can take 4 or even 5 weeks after a mourning dove lays the egg. Mourning doves live in all 48 states, and I can only assume that differences will evolve even within the species. At any rate, the news was encouraging.

And then this morning, papa bird returned. I found him sitting stoically on the railing of the balcony, tormenting Mojo with his very presence. My sources say that papa makes himself scarce during the chick's development, but returns to assist mama in feeding the very demanding newborn. So, trying not to upset anyone, I climbed onto some crates and peeked in. Sure enough, a very gray, very wet, very bewildered little critter cuddled against his mother and peered back at me. He even has her beady little black eyes.

I couldn't be more proud than if it were my little chick. Welcome to the world, baby bird! Christ, does anyone else hear that alarm going off? Ignore it. Seriously.