I was on my way out the door when I noticed something that
someone had said. He’d said to leave it. “It” turned out to be a very young
fledgling Noisy Miner bird. It’s a native bird of Australia. They hang out in
mobs and screech at most other things: birds, people, cats ... just about
everything.
So, I dropped my things, collected the tiny little fledgling
and then tapped on the window of the staff room and proudly displayed my new
little friend asking my colleague to go and get my other colleague.
While Colleague 1 was off getting Colleague 2 for me I
wandered around outside and showed the parents that I had their baby safely
(well, not sure if they’d agree about the safety element) – they were doing flybys
... It was then that I heard another baby chirp coming from the shrubs inside
our gates ... There was another baby. So I gathered up the sibling and had two
birds ... What’s that saying again about two birds in the hand?!?
So, when Colleague 2 arrived, I passed over the bubbas ...
we decided to make them a temporary little nest should they want it and put it near
the large pile of branches and plant prunings. We were going to bag them up –
but thankfully we didn’t! We can use them to make a safer habitat for the
babies should they choose to stay there.
There are feral cats about, but we also have to give the
family a chance to raise their own young and to keep them within their
community. Much like we do with children.
My colleague does wild-life caring so she’s going to keep an
eye out on our little friends. It’s best that they stay with their family if
they can – you can’t keep fledglings in a nest if they don’t want to! They want
to learn to fly and climb and be independent ... just like all babies!
I will be able to put this into a little story to share with
the children ... unfortunately we couldn’t share the babies with the children
because we wanted to maintain the family connection with their bubs and not
freak everybird out so much! If only Miss Five were here today to see the other
“natures” that we found! I will certainly tell her all about it next week.
They came from across the road from a VERY tall Jacaranda tree:
Some of our children have noticed the nest in the tree across the street ... We don't have sight of it from the part of the centre the children are in, but we sometimes look from the front administration rooms ...
Hopefully this will have a happy outcome with their family for the little bubs!
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