The day I fucked with nature

Photo credit..RoughTimes on Flicker

That dead Blue Jay post and the comments reminded me of a good story I have. It's pretty strange, but, it's 100% true. Once, a few years ago I lived in this little house surrounded by trees and a stream in the back yard. It was Paradise for birds and I spent a lot of time watching them and I learned a lot about birds there. One of the things I found out is that birds can't smell. You know that old wives tale, if you handle a baby bird the mother will smell a human and reject the baby? That's not true, they can't smell jack. Anyway, we, Iowan's live in tornado alley and twisters are a part of life. One Spring night we had a small one come through and tear the hell out of all the trees near the stream. I went out the next morning and along with downed limbs and trees, I found a crap load of baby birds and downed nests.
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What a mess! Some were dead, smashed, but, some were alive. Some of the mothers gathered the older babies and taught early flying lessons and they were managing. But, the tiny tiny babies were just laying there. The mothers couldn't pick them up and the cats were moving in. It was chaos. I couldn't reach most of the nests that were left, but, I could reach a few. You know where this is going, right?
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I would have raised a baby or two, I've done that many times and never lost one. But, birds you raise tend to stay with you and I wasn't keen on dozens of birds following me around all Summer. So, I got a ladder and I started placing live babies in nests. I tried really hard to match them up, but, honestly until a bird gets real feathers, you can't really tell what the heck they are. I just hoped for the best and thought maybe I'd get a few right and save them.
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I believe I saved them all. I watched with my binoculars for weeks after that and I did not see one baby rejected. But, boy howdy, did I see some odd and hilarious stuff. Quiet wrens raising shrieking Jay babies, Blue Jay's raising a Cardinal, and many other peculiar mixed combinations. The funniest of all was a darling mother Robin who got stuck with a fat screaming Starling baby. Robin babies are sharp, they catch on quick to flying and hunting, Starlings are just the opposite. She would patiently teach him things by example over and over and yet he sat there looking dazed. She would place a fat worm in front of him on the grass and he would cry and screech until she gave up and fed it to him. It must have been difficult for her and she must have thought she had a special needs child. He was almost twice her size and she'd try and cover him with her wing. It was so sweet and pathetic. It must have been so hard on her. But, she did it. They all did it. Because birds can't smell jack and motherhood in nature is beautiful sometimes.