Scene from the window
The Coprosma, a weedy tree growing hard up against our bedroom window, had to go. But we hadn’t counted on the wattle birds. They make scrappy nests at the best of times, and the mess of twigs tucked precariously between two frail branches was unremarkable. From inside our bedroom, however, the nest was at eye level, giving us front row seats for the domestic drama in which two fluffy grey bundles became fledglings thanks to the hard work and devotion of their parents.
At regular intervals one adult bird would alight on the edge of the nest; in a quick and silent transaction, a baby lifted its head to receive the offering from the parental beak before resuming its inert state. The parent never came directly, waiting in a nearby eucalypt before swooping across. There was danger everywhere. Crows, magpies, kookaburras, the odd domestic cat and night-time rats were all on the lookout for an easy meal. We began to share the parents’ anxiety as the babies fluffed out and filled the nest. Would they make it to the next stage?
Next morning the babies were more alert, still silent and waiting, one facing east, the other west. After feeding, each poked its tail feathers up, expelling a pellet which the parent caught in its beak and swallowed, solving forever the question why empty nests are always clean. By noon the babies had somehow clambered up to the highest twig of the frail tree and were huddled together but facing in opposite directions. From time to time they flexed their grey-brown-speckly white wings that shimmered in the sunlight, while stepping from one spindly leg to the other. The supply of food had stopped. The parents waited in the eucalypt opposite. The silence was pregnant with expectation.
After several hours the slightly bigger baby bird suddenly spread its wings and took off clumsily on an upward trajectory. It landed in the ti-tree nearby – a good choice, camouflaged as it was in a cloud of small green leaves. The other baby stayed put, flexing and stepping, fluttering, and folding its wings continuously. Would it ever take the plunge? Dusk crept across the garden. The parents were mute, but anxious. Although keen to check on baby number one, they were reluctant to leave baby number two.
And then, almost as a mis-step, the baby bird stumbled into air, and there was an agonising moment before its wings outspread just in time for a crash landing on a low slung branch. We now understood why they’d left the nest and trekked to the highest point in the tree for the inaugural take-off.
At sunrise the following day both babies were settled in the ti-tree with parents in intermittent attendance They stayed around the garden for the next couple of weeks, flying experimentally from tree to tree, still dependent on their parents for food, and making it clear by a constant whining cheep how hungry they were, growing all the time larger and fatter while their parents became sleeker and skinnier, kept on call from daylight to dusk. By the end of the summer it was impossible to tell the babies from their overworked parents. Hopefully, next Spring one of them will have found a partner and might build a new nest outside our window. Perhaps we’ll leave the coprosma in place for another year.