Bird Watching

So, on Sunday evening we had family over for dinner. We were eating outside, and as we went in and out from the back door, I heard a bird chirping. We have a little vent opening out there that goes to the bathroom on the main floor. We've had birds there before we all assumed that is where the chirping was coming from. Fun! We have a nest in our house! Then a little bit later, I was in the basement getting some chairs, and heard the sound louder. Odd... then I learned that the chirping was not coming from the vent, but from the basementwindow sill. We looked down but couldn't see where the bird was, so I went down and opened the basement window and then was able to see the little bird hiding under a leaf. Tiny bird, still with it's down feathers on it's head and wing feathers growing out. We thought it must have fallen from the vent down into the window. We searched for a worm to feed it, the kids went to google to search how to rescue/feed/etc a bird. And I got the ladder so we could try to maybe put it back (after everyone got a turn holding it). 

Pretty exciting! Real nature right in our backyard! So I put the bird up in the vent. It didn't look like there was a new nest up there, but I could tell there had been one there... but it didn't look fresh... maybe the nest is further back? So I glued some cardboard over the bottom of the hole to hold the bird in a little better and we hoped it would hop back home. We kept the ladder out so we could check on the bird later and in the morning to see if it was okay. Then, like right after we put it up in the vent. Ethan was walking by one of our trees close by the kitchen window and noticed something fall to the ground. He was very surprised to find another little gray bird. It was alive and fine, and the kids said it was exactly alike the first one! They got the first one out of vent. I eventually came to take a peek. Yup, those two do look identical. About that time, Melodie came back to report her internet research findings. She said we shouldn't try to feed it anything, some worms can be poisonous. She also said sometimes the birds jump out of their nest as they practice flying, and they just hop around on the ground while the parents watch. Maybe the first bird hopped over to the window from this tree? Okay... well so what do we do now? We put them down on the ground and watched where they went. They ended up snuggling together by the trunk of the tree where the second one dropped from. We just decided to leave them there for the night, with a prayer that the neighbor's cats won't get them!

Yesterday morning we all went out to check on the birds. They were still by the tree, hooray! They were very camoflauged. You can see one pretty clearly and the other one is there in front and to the right a little bit.

Ok, well, I guess we'll just leave them there and pray for the best. I couldn't reach the nest with the ladder anyway. There's not much we can do but let nature take its' course. After the kids left for school, I sat by the kitchen nook and bird watched the morning away. I noticed a few birds flying around the tree. They all looked the same, I got my camera and caught a few pics of one of the birds:

We've decided we think the baby birds belong to the small red finch class. There were three of these finches flying around the tree this morning. I watched as one bird perched on the branch and kept an eye out while the other went down to the babies, and then sometimes two of them were chasing each other away. I'm hoping the babies really are both from the same nest, I'd feel horrible bad if I put babies from two sets of parents together and the tougher/meaner parent won't let the other parent near their baby bird!