Wacky Wednesday: *chirp, chirp, flutter, flutter*

Hello!  *chirp, chirp* *flutter, flutter*

These are now the sounds I hear daily as I write.

Would you like me to explain?

Back in July, after we returned home from our Colorado vacation, my oldest son went out to feed the horses and found a baby sparrow (I think!) that'd fallen out of it's nest.  Now, there was really no way to know which nest he/she belonged to, so my daughter took over and decided she was going to become a 'mama'. 

Baby Petey

She'd tried to rescue a robin earlier in the spring, but unfortunately, it died.  We'd learned after the fact how much the little guys need to eat a day (19 feet of worms!) and that you can substitute with water-soaked cat food. 

The little bird was dubbed Petey, and my daughter took good care of 'him'.  When he first came into the house, he barely had feathers and just a bit of fuzz covering the pink skin on his back.  I warned my daughter he might not make it and she understood (she's almost 10).

Fast forward two weeks (and two trips up north to the lake with Petey where we got a small cage from Grandma) and he'd grown his feathers and seemed ready for the Great Outdoors.  I explained that it wasn't fair to keep a wild bird caged up and we needed to set him free.  It took another couple days to get the kids to finally let him go, and by then he'd learned to eat real bird food, too.  My hubby filmed Petey flying away and my son (8) walking after him calling, "Take care!"

Freedom Day--but Petey came back!

About a half hour later, the kids were outside by the picnic table under the tree and they heard loud, incessant chirping.  Definitely Petey.  All of a sudden, amidst a flutter of wings, he landed on the picnic table by them and proceeded to hang out. 

Petey spent most of the day with them, but flew up into the tree somewhere for the night.  The next morning, though, he flew right back down.  Now we have 4 cats outside, so the kids and I began to worry he might come down some time when they weren't out there.  And that's exactly what happened the next time they went outside and found him sitting on the patio waiting for them. Then our cat Grace tackled him while we were outside and I knew that was it.

"Where's my mama?!"

It took me five minutes to find a big bird cage on Craig's list about 10 miles away from our house (LOVE Craig's List!!) and Petey once more had a home inside.

"Ah, I found her."

Fast forward another week, and we learned Petey's one smart bird.  It took a couple nosedives into the window to realize he can't fly out there.  My daughter opens his cage and he wings from there to the couch.  He snuggles on her leg or back and they watch TV.  He follows them up the stairs and then back down again.  Sometimes he'll even hover over to me and perch on my shoulder, hand or keyboard as I'm writing.  He likes to bite my fingernails and sometimes nibbles a bit hard on my fingers.

"This is comfy, too."

He can bite me all he wants...he's just so darn cute!  Don't you agree?

"Whatcha writing?"

Oh, and a quick tip I learned from my cousin Nikki...If you find a baby bird out of it's nest (and you know which nest it belongs to), you CAN put it back in, just warm it up in your hands first.  The mama birds don't kick it out of the nest again because of human scent...they kick it out because it's cold and they think something is wrong with it, or that it's sick.  Put the little baby back in nice and toasty warm, and hopefully you'll have saved a life!

I hope Petey made you smile today!  Have a good one.  :)

Stacey Joy Netzel