Sparrow eggs
"Be careful! I almost
stepped on you!"
I was walking down to
the far end of the furthest garden patch to check on our three week old
chicks, and at first I thought the little bird flitting out from under
my feet was a baby chicken that had hopped through a gap in the fence
to explore the outside world. But it flew up and away into the
bushes --- a sparrow, not a chick.
"What were you doing
down there?" I asked. (Yes, I do talk to birds, snakes, toads,
and plants in the garden.) I crouched down to look into the grass
that had grown up in a hard-to-mow spot beside a small stump and gasped
in delight. Four tiny, speckled eggs, mere feet away from my
oldest cucumber patch.
I barely caught a
glimpse of the mother, but I'll assume she was a song sparrow since
they're our most common yard sparrows at this time of year. If
so, I only have to keep the mower away from her nest for the next three
weeks --- 12 to 13 days of incubation, then 10 days of chick rearing
before the mother turns the youngsters over to their dad and moves on
to brood number two. (At this time of year, it might even be
brood 3.) Sounds a bit like the way I
foisted off my own chick-rearing duties on a hen last month....
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