Sad Baby Stories?

  The twin fawns are still hanging around. You can see that the one is quite comfortable. The sad part of this story is that I think they lost their mom last week. They have been alone all but one day in the entire past week. Perhaps having each other will be enough to help protect them. I did see one adult doe with them yesterday, but it might just be from the larger local herd. I've never seen a mother leave fawns so small on their own. And there was a full sized doe dead along the road. The twins are clearly still alive, but probably missing whatever lessons mama teaches baby deer at this stage of their development. Probably to NOT lie down on the lawn so close to humans. And the one that is lying down seems to be growing more slowly.

My other baby story definitely has 1 out of 4 parts that is sad. On Saturday night, Dave and I went on the deck to look at some fireworks. My toe hit something soft. I turned on the light and found two baby phoebes on the deck floor. One was flat and had been dead for a couple of days. The other seemed fine, but had no flight feathers. Clearly too small to fledge. We put the live one back in the nest, and there were two others still in the nest. So 3 of 4 were alive. Mom and Dad had no problem with me handling the baby.

But they chose today, this chilly wet day, to fledge. Number 1 spent most of the afternoon on the deck floor. I did see one of the parents taking it something to eat once.

But now, two have taken flight into the cold wet grass and weeds. I'm sure Mom and Dad know where they are, but will they be warm enough if they get wet? One is still in the nest.

This has to be the second brood of babies for the phoebes in this nest, this year. The previous picture in the link below was in May. Those babies should be long gone by now. I wonder if the three that were alive on Saturday will make it to adulthood. Life in the wild can be brutal.

In other news: Rain all day. I did some volunteer work, I edited, I wrote. Trying to be good, but the humid air is oppressive. More of the same for tomorrow.

See Little Things