Barking Mad

Until They Fly Away

Gaby has said over and over again, that she's going to stand there until the baby robins fly away, so that she can say goodbye to each one. 

Gaby and I have gotten so attached to these adorable little peeps that we've named them!  While I can never be sure who's who, we've christened the chicks,  Twitter, Flutter, Pippa, and ...Bambi.  I know I know, but Gaby insisted.   So Bambi it is.  I have no idea which is male and which is female, so just go with me here, after all, it makes Gaby really happy! 

Every morning, I sit and wait until mama and papa robin are off foraging for worms and other yummies for their babies, before I step out and snap a few quick shots of the babies.   I had a bit more time today so I stood on a step ladder and noticed that each of the chicks are taking turns moving to the top of the pile and spreading their wings and fluffing them out.   Surely it won't be long before they are on the precipice of the nest, and then they'll take that leap.   It looks like Twitter made his or her way to the top of the pile and is fluffing and trying to spread his wings in anticipation of eventually taking flight . . .

I imagine this might be Pippa, getting ready to fluff her wings, and also maybe practicing for when she has a brood of her own babies.

When  they do make those first few furtive jumps, Gaby has promised she's going to be there to wish them good luck and say goodbye...

What a Difference a Few Days Makes

Remember it was just five days ago when I first posted about discovering that baby robins had hatched, in the nest that's located right outside our back door?   We figured they were about 5 days old at the time.

That was then . . .

. . . And this is NOW!

It won't be long at all before they're trying out those downy soft feather wings and taking to the air to begin lives of their own.

It's a bit funny to think how I found them so alien-looking and not the most adorable things, when we first saw them, and have been almost annoyed by their presence, yet now I find myself knowing I'm going to miss them when they fly the coop. 

It's been an absolute joy to share with Gaby how rapidly the chicks have gone from unattractive hatchlings to fully-feathered young birds.     We're hoping that mama and papa robin decide to brood again, as it's still early enough in the season.    Well, we're also hoping that they might want to reconsider moving the nest.  If not?  We'll all co-exist happily.  

 

Shooting Birds

Several weeks ago I decided it was time to start shooting birds, again.  It had been at least five years since I'd taken aim and fired away, and I thought that early spring would be as good a time as any to get back into the swing of things.

Yesterday I decided to shoot some baby birds.    

Today?  Well I was determined to get some close-ups of the robin chicks with my DSLR . . .wait, you actually thought I was shooting the birds, as in, with a gun?   Oh please!    I'm shooting with my camera.   I gave up owning handguns ten years ago!

First of all, we don't want to upset mama and papa robin, but it seems like no matter what we do, they don't like that we sleep in the bedroom that their nest borders.  It's right up against the outside wall, of our bedroom.     Not only that, as hot as it was today, we put the pool up for Gaby and let her play in the back garden, another thing that mama and papa robin take issue with.    Our front garden is almost non-existent and borders a street that sees a fair amount of traffic.  There's no way Gaby is playing out there.

So I got my telephoto lens out, and decided to wait and see if I could get some images from a safer distance...safe for the robin chicks and safe for my scalp, and especially my eyes, which I'm fairly certain mama and papa robin would like to see if they could peck out of their sockets.    So while Gareth and I sat a fair distance away from the nest, while watching Gaby play in the pool, I waited to see if I could get a better photo of the chicks.  

Let's just say that every time I picked up my camera, mama and papa robin would dart in front of my lens, obscuring my shot.   So I gave up trying to take a photo from outside.   Instead, when we all came back into the house after roasting in the 92F sun, I decided to push the moveable screen in our back door, down.  

I wasn't able to angle the camera to capture anything other than the bottom of the nest and the porch light, so I gave up.   However, as I was standing there, I noticed mama robin perched on the top of the garage,  watching me closely, waiting for me to move away from the door.  

click images for full size

Then mama robin decided she'd had enough!    How do I know this?  Well, despite this image being craptastically blurry,  you can tell that she was coming straight for me.   I took a huge step back and clicked, but not fast enough to make sure my lens was focused on her.   I think you still get a pretty good idea that I was about to lose a camera lens, or possibly even an eye!

The only image I got of the robin chicks was a bit earlier with my point and shoot,  when two out of the four babies popped their heads up, in anticipation of something to eat.

I had thoughts of perhaps photo-documenting the growth and eventual departure of the chicks.   I think for my own safety and for mama robin's peace of mind, I might not do that.   In exchange for keeping the prying camera lens away from her babies (technically, I have always shot from a safe distance, being cognizant of mama bird and her babies and not wanting her to abandon the nest.) I'm hoping she'll let us play out in the back garden without dive-bombing us and trying to take clumps of our hair to line her nest!

Here's a Gosling I'd Like to Cuddle

No, not that Gosling!

I'm talking about this gosling . . . errr, rather these goslings,

Amidst the plethora of history we discovered this past weekend over in Plymouth, MA., we happened to come upon a gaggle of geese that included these adorable little goslings.    Being that I'm absolutely terrified of geese (have you ever been goosed? I promise you, that's not something you'll soon forget!)  , despite my desire to cuddle one of those babies, I decided to aim my camera at them and not cuddle them!  Thankfully I didn't get charged by the protective gander and mama!

Of course, once it crapped on me I'm pretty sure I wouldn't find it so cute.   That's why I take photographs of stuff like this.   All the adorableness and none of the crap.

Change of Scenery - The Seagull-Man of Nubble Light

I have been trying very hard to shield Gaby from the drama surrounding the last several days as a result of the incidents at her school.   For all that this child has been through, she is still remarkably intuitive and still such a compassionate little soul.    While I was sitting on the sofa enjoying a mental break from everything, courtesy of Jennifer Lawson's book, "Let's Pretend This Never Happened", Gaby asked me if she could talk to me for a little while.   Never one to shy away from a conversation with my daughter, I told her that of course, we could chat for however long she would like to. 

Gaby started by asking me, "Mom, when are we going home?  Can we make sure we're home before Meg gets out of the Air Force, 'cause she's going home and I don't want to be here any more!"  

I leaned over and kissed her head and told her, "I know, Gidget (her long time nick-name), I want to go home too.  Right now we're here and we need to make the best of it, but maybe we can go back to Maine for another quick visit in the next couple of weeks.  But this is where daddy works right now.  It's where we live for a while." 

Gaby smiled and said, "Oh promise me we can!  I miss Miss Stephanie, Mr. Zach, Miss Kat, Beena and Honey (Miss Stephanie's cats), and I want to see Miss Abby and Miss Rachel, and go eat pasta at Ocean House Pizza, and visit the sea monster, skip stones with daddy into the ocean, and oh oh oh can we go back and see if the Seagull-Man is still feeding the birds at the lighthouse?  Mom please say we can.  That was really cool.  OK well it was kinda scary too, but it was really cool!" 

I chuckled and told her, "Woahhhh, Gidget, take a breath!  Slow down.  The seagull guy was pretty cool wasn't he?  You know (I have made such an ass of myself in front of my children when it comes to to the birds and the bees...both literally and figuratively!) how much birds scare mommy, but I thought it was neat watching him feed all those birds and they'd just float there in the air, waiting their turn to take a cracker from his hand." 

Gaby looked really thoughtful for a moment.    By the look on her face, I was expecting her to make some sort of thoughtful observation about the man feeding the seagulls at Nubble Lighthouse.   Instead, she piped up, "Mom, do you think that guy gets pooped on a lot, by all those birds?"  

I couldn't help myself so I laughed, then laughed some more and told her, "I bet he does, if he feeds them as often as I think he does.  The birds came right over to him before he even took out the first package of crackers.    I don't remember seeing any birds drop anything on him, but then I was kinda scared the same thing was going to happen to me, standing there taking all of those photos!" 

Gaby jumped off the couch and grabbed my hand and said, "That's right!  You took a lot of pictures!  Come on mom, let's go look at them!" 

And with that, we walked down the hall and then into the room where the big computer with the huge monitor is (because I'm not getting any younger and the thought of editing hundreds of images on a minuscule notebook screen sends shooting pains through my eyeballs!), the one I use for editing photos, and we began looking through all the pictures I took while we were back home in Maine on holiday, especially the images of the Seagull-Man of Nubble Light! 

When I first noticed this man standing there it was because literally hundreds of Seagulls were flocking to him.  It was like he was the Justin Bieber of the bird world!  

Normally, I'm pretty terrified of birds.  I've been dive-bombed by an agry crow before, who had lost a member of it's murder thanks to the resident cat in the house I was living in at the time.   I still have an angry scar on my arm thanks to that despicable bird.  And the poor cat who caught the crow and then ate it?   He lost an ear.   I suppose I should be grateful that I only got a nasty cut and didn't end up getting Van-Gogh'd by a crow who was out for revenge. 

Anyhow, I decided to stand back (I'm not stupid, I also didn't want to get crapped on by all those birds!), and start taking pictures. 

The moment the gentleman reached into his jacket pocket the gulls started to hover in the air around him. 

The gulls would literally just wait for a chance to take a cracker right from his hand. 

One of the things that really struck me about this gentleman is the fact that he never ever didn't have a smile on his face.    The entire time he was feeding the gulls, sleeve after sleeve of crackers, he always smiled.  

While I stood there wondering how long it was going to be before I got a bird-bomb dropped on me from above, or worried about my camera and lens getting bombed,  the Seagull-Man fed the birds by hand, cracker after cracker.  There was no squabbling between birds, sort of like the kind you might find when you're sitting at McDonald's, the one closest to the Portland Headlight, throwing fries out the window to all the hovering seagulls...not that I've ever done that before.   Under normal circumstances, feeding seagulls like that is akin to the avian version of The Hunger Games! But not for the Seagull-Man of Nubble Light! 

After standing there watching him feed the seagulls for more than ten minutes and be awe-struck by the never-fading smile he always wore, I couldn't help but to smile too, despite the fact that I was absolutely sure I was going to be sporting some huge bird splats.    For whatever it's worth, the birds didn't bomb him at all. 

And they didn't get me either! 

I'm glad Gaby asked me to look through all of our vacation photos with her.   I needed to take a breather from all the emotion of the last few days and focus on something beautiful.  

For a few moments I was able to go back in time and relive watching the smiling man with all the gulls, giggle at a beautiful little girl who managed to find a bunch of puppies on the beach, and inhale deeply and try and recapture the scent of salty sea air, and time spent with the people I love dearly.