Frisky critters

The animals and birds who live in my rural neighbourhood are having a lot more sex than I am. I’m literally tripping over babies everywhere I go.

I spend my entire time outside shooing babies of all kinds off the road so they don’t get killed….baby partridges, baby ducks, baby rabbits, baby snakes, baby robins, baby chipmunks….the list is endless.

We even have two baby eagles in our local cemetery. The last time I was down planting flowers, mom and dad were off picking up the kids some fast food and their two little brats were hanging off the edge of the nest testing out their wings. One would flap and then the other one would flap harder. Typical sibling rivalry. I was frantic that they were going to tumble out, but they didn’t.

When hubby and I walk in the morning he’s got a habit of picking up worms and throwing them off to the side of the road so they don’t get run over or covered in too much sand and grit. I think we’ve become Buddhists over the years.  Everything stops when we see a little creature going about their busy day. John saw a mommy chipmunk run across the laneway and right behind her was a tiny little chipmunk. Mom is called Chippy…she stuffs her face on the bird seed out back. Baby Chipper will have to run really fast to stay away from our neighbour’s cat…..grumble, grumble.

I even saw a mink the other day carrying a baby in it’s mouth as she dashed from one watery ditch to the next. We always have robins make their nests in one of our trees out front. One year there were three babies. We called them Hughie, Dewey and Louie. This years family had only two little robins, so we called them Bert and Ernie….except I keep on saying Bernie and Dert for some reason.

Then the two youngsters flew out of the nest and their parents were kept hopping trying to feed them on the ground. It was so funny to look outside and see the four of them on the lawn early in the morning. One baby would tail the mom, and the other one would stick as close as could be to Daddio. They were exactly like tired and cranky three year olds. They wouldn’t leave their parents alone for a minute. Then they get to that stage where they look almost bigger than their parents, and no wonder…..ma and pa have lost weight just trying to feed these kids from morning till night.

But one of the sweetest sights was on the birdfeeder one morning. The little gold finches were there first thing and usually you just see the older birds, but on this particular rainy morning, one of the babies must have followed mommy to the feeder. Have you ever seen a baby gold finch? Adorable doesn’t even describe them. Because of the rain, he looked like toddler just out of the bathtub, with his feathers all fluffed up and all over the place, like someone had tried to dry him off with a little towel. I wanted to hug  him!!

I just love babies.

Especially Callum. xoxoxoxo

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