Baby Birds In May

Early in May we saw that birds were creating a nest on top of our side garage lights. With all the choices of the trees in the yard, this seemed like an unlikely place, but the birds seemed happy with their new home.

Photo 140 of 365, taken May 13th:

As the nest grew in size, any slight breeze would blow some of the stray nesting materials, setting off our motion light at all hours of the night. Dave debated taking the nest down, but it was clear that the mama bird was being very protective of it, and we knew baby birds were on their way.

Mama bird sat hunkered down and all puffed up like this for several days in a row.

Photo 141 of 365, taken May 20th:

One day there were some sweet and noisy baby birds out there to greet us. It was neat to see, but it is also when the nest got way out of control. I'm not sure if it was an effort to keep everyone in the nest warm, but over the course of a week or so, the nest tripled in size. It appeared that the adult birds were dragging up every piece of garbage they could find, including paper and something that looked rather cloth-like. Our motion light was set off constantly {we would have just disabled it entirely, but many evenings I really appreciate it as I am walking from the driveway to the house}. After watching the nest grow to monumental size, one morning about half the nest fell on its own...and a second bird family moved in. Now about a month later, we have new baby birds chirping noisily as I type this up. We just might be stuck with that nest all summer.

Photo 142 of 365, taken May 20th:

Unrelated to the birds, Alyssa made a planter using a 2 liter bottle in science class. She says a tomato plant is going to grow.

Photo 143 of 365, also taken May 20th:

Grebes bakery had lots of pretty flag cookies on our last visit. The girls loved them, and continue to look forward to all of Alyssa's monthly orthodontist appointments because they know it means a cookie and donut treat from Grebes.